Moonshadows (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
moonshadows) wrote2011-08-30 12:38 pm
moonshadows) wrote2011-08-30 12:38 pm
East crossover crack
“-jou!”
On the narrow mountain path, four men paused.
Goku blinked. “Did you say something, Sanzo?”
The priest scowled. “No.”
At the back of the party, Gojyo snorted. “Sure sounded like you.”
“Shut up,” snapped Sanzo. “Do you feel that?”
“Feel wh-” the hanyou stopped mid-word as Hakkai shot him a warning glance.
“I feel it,”Hakkai assured Sanzo quietly, absently petting the white dragon on his shoulder.
“Feel what? Ow!” Goku turned to glare at Gojyo, one hand on the ear that had been flicked. “What’s the big idea, you-” Between one word and the next, he stopped and sniffed the air. “Something smells weird.”
Goku looked up at the priest with curious golden eyes. “Who’s that?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“But he knows you!”
“I know that voice,” the made-youkai said in a subdued tone. “He was responsible for the revival experiments. He got away.”
Sanzo visibly weighed the pros and cons of following the voice.
“Your childhood name was Kouryu,” the voice said lightly.
Almost before the word ended, Sanzo stiffened and he ignored Goku asking what was so bad about that name. The hammer of Sanzo’s banishing gun clicked ominously as he raised it, fury radiating from every pore of his body, and the other three went so still they may have been holding their breaths. “Goku? Find him. He’s not getting away this time.”
Goku took point, sniffing his way through the trees while Sanzo stalked after him, Hakkai and Gojyo following a healthy, respectful distance behind the priest and Hakuryuu flitting ahead with Goku. Although he couldn’t see the blue-and-green sparks coming off the Maten and Seiten scriptures on Sanzo’s shoulders the way Hakkai could, Gojyo could feel the other man’s deadly rage as the voice calmly sketched out Sanzo’s origins.
“You’re not surprised,” he muttered to Hakkai. “You knew?”
“What’s the deal with that guy?” Gojyo asked glancing at the other man without turning his head. “You’re rattled.”
“He was working with Chin Yisou.”
The words were crisp, clipped, and absolutely devoid of any emotion, and that told the hanyou exactly how much the other man was holding back.
“Got it,” he said, letting the subject drop.
“Bullshit?” the voice asked in response to a comment none of them heard. “On what grounds? You should be the one that knows best of all - on that day, at that time...what happened the night you inherited the title ‘Sanzo’?”
Goku glanced back over his shoulder. “He sounds like he’s talking to you, but you didn’t say anything.”
“Just keep tracking him,” snarled the priest as the floating voice tauntingly declared that his predecessor had sacrificed himself to protect his protégée.
For several moments, there was only the quiet sounds of four men picking a path between trees and bushes. Then the voice laughed quietly, a smug sound that set Sanzo’s teeth on edge and brought a hardness to the neutral expression on Hakkai’s face. Another pause, this one longer, and then the voice began to lay out the details of one Gati Nenehawk, his origins and the events of his death, and then his subsequent resurrection by means of having a ‘monster’ soul transferred into his body, leaving him a living corpse banished from his home and following the man who’d killed and resurrected him.
Without a word, Sanzo fired the banishing gun and the shimmer pulled back, leaving a hole. “Keep going. Find him and kill him.”
“Aren’t you coming?” Goku asked.
“Not if you want to ever get back,” he answered. “No,” he said as Goku opened his mouth in confusion. “I’ll explain later. After you kill that son of a bitch.”
“Muten?” Hakkai asked in a low voice as he and Gojyo picked their way to the hole in the barrier.
“And Maten,” Sanzo answered grimly.
Gojyo looked very much like he wanted to ask a question, but the grim nod the words got from Hakkai made him hold his tongue.
“That is a fair argument,” the voice conceded as the three passed through the barrier, Hakuryuu winging her way upwards to scout ahead. “However, information will warp with the introduction of emotion.” The voice was no longer distant and floaty, but sounded like it was mere yards away, and figures could be seen through the trees just ahead.
Without warning, Hakkai darted ahead and broke into the clearing, clapping his hands in a slow, mocking way. “Amazing!” he declared, condescendingly. “Truly amazing! Do me next.”
The other two stepped out into the clearing to see a dark-haired man in a black version of Sanzo’s robes staring at them in surprise, a familiar-looking scripture draped over his shoulders.
“Oh? Do you?” Light glinted off the dark priest’s glasses.
“Yes,” Hakkai answered firmly. “Lay out the details of my life, like you did for Sanzo and Gat.”
“Are you sure?” The dark priest’s voice was equally consescending. “You may not like what you hear.”
“I want to hear it,” insisted Hakkai, an edge creeping into his voice. “I want to know the name of the woman who abandoned me.”
Off to the side, a foreigner that could only be Bishop Hazel moved to stand next to the mountain of a man holding two impressively-sized revolvers. “M-Mister Glasses?” he exclaimed in incredulous shock.
Hakkai didn’t even spare him a glance. “I prefer being called by my name,” he said in a voice like ice.
The dark priest smirked. “Cho Hakkai. A youkai. Formerly a human named Cho Gonou. You went on a killing spree trying to find and save your precious love, Kanan. Too bad you were too late.”
“You mean,” Hakkai countered evenly, “too bad she killed herself before you could perform your vile experiments on her.”
Gojyo glanced between his friend and the dark priest uneasily while Goku looked lost but unwilling to speak up.
“Oh? Whatever do you mean?”
Hakkai wasn’t fazed by his tone of innocent confusion. “You know what I’m talking about. I know who you are.”
“And who am I, then?” the dark man asked smugly.
“Dr. Ni Jianyi, a scientist in the employ of Gyokumen Koshu, in charge of the Great Experiment. The revival of Gyumaoh,” Hakkai clarified.
Hakkai smiled, but it was cruel and cold. “I’ll leave it to your imagination.”
The foreigner turned to the dark priest. “Mr. Ukoku??”
Ni-Ukoku shrugged.
On the far side of the clearing, past both Hazel and the man who could only be Gat, a pale shape struggling to pick itself up off the ground growled, “All of you, shut up.”
Goku started. “Sanzo?”
The priest didn’t answer, all his effort being spent trying to force his battered body to obey him. Goku sniffed, then turned and sniffed the way they’d come. “Hakkai...”
“That’s why he stayed,” the other man said quietly.
Goku nodded while Hazel protested that Sanzo shouldn’t move, all his limbs should be broken, and got told to shut up for his trouble.
“Don’t get in my way,” snarled the battered priest.
Ni-Ukoku lit a cigarette. “My, aren’t we desperate? Are you that embarassed?” he asked mockingly, ignoring the newcomers in favor of watching Sanzo struggle to his feet.
“Mr. Ukoku,” Hakkai called politely. When that failed to get a response, he shot a concentrated point of chi at the dark priest, destroying the cigarette in the other man’s mouth. “It’s rude to ignore your opponents,” he chided when that got him a startled look.
Ni-Ukoku laughed again, the amused mocking that they’d heard before. “Alright, you got me. I’ll play with you for a little bit,” he said, as if humoring a small child.
Slowly, deliberately, he raised one hand and made a flicking motion. Goku’s head rocked back as if he’d been struck in the face, and he exclaimed more out of surprise than out of pain. A second flicking motion, but Gojyo already had his forearms crossed to block it, and merely grunted. The third impacted harmlessly off the shimmering semicircle of chi curving around Hakkai.
Gojyo moved his cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other and wordlessly clapped Hakkai on the shoulder, and then he was halfway across the clearing with his polearm out, hair trailing behind him like a banner. Hakkai merely stood where he was, hands up as if caught mid-shrug, eyes following the motions of the dark priest.
While Hazel watched, mouth slackly open in shocked surprise, Ukoku leaped backwards to avoid Goku’s descent, only to get one leg pulled out from beneath him by the chain of Gojyo’s polearm and land hard on his back. In an instant, he was back on his feet and leaping to avoid Goku again, landing on the branch of a nearby tree with a tsk-tsk sound.
“How sudden! Don’t you normally have a little more of an extended banter with the enemy? Don’t you want to know what my goal is?”
The crescent blade of Gojyo’s polearm sliced the branch away from the trunk, causing the dark priest to jump hastily into the air, where Goku met him with a solid strike from his staff.
“Nah,” called the hanyou. “Don’t care.”
“Make sure you stay far away from his abilities!” Sanzo shouted before coughing up a mouthful of blood.
Both Goku and Ukoku landed neatly, but the dark priest jumped again to avoid Gojyo charging at him, one foot out as he arced gracefully through the air, toe extended to land lightly on the top of the hanyou’s head and use him as a stepping stone - but as his foot made contact, Gojyo’s hand clamped tightly around his ankle. The redhead threw himself backwards, using his inertia to hurl his opponent face-first at the ground. As soon as the hand released his ankle, before he landed, there was an invisible flare of violet and Ukoku vanished to land on one knee a safe distance away.
The loose ball of chi that slammed into his back forced him to flicker again before he ate dirt.
“Incredible!” Ni-Ukoku called out from another tree branch. “You three are even more marvelous specimens than I thought! I’d like to bring you all back to my laboratory.”
“You already had me there,” Hakkai said calmly, another burst of chi making the dark priest jump again, use the Muten scripture to dissolve the chain that wrapped around his body, and kick off of Goku to land awkwardly some distance away, only to have to use the Muten again to negate the third chi blast. “It didn’t go so well for you.”
The scientist-priest frowned. “When was this? I’m certain I would have remembered that.”
A commotion from over by Hazel and Gat distracted the combatants, who all turned to see that three more people had entered the clearing: a redhead in a leather jacket, a boy with wild brown hair, and a slender man in a green tunic.
The other Gojyo was the first to react. “What the hell?”
Gojyo snorted. “The cosplayers are getting out of hand, but these ones can stay.”
Hazel stammered something incoherent while Sanzo growled about more bullshit and the other Hakkai rushed over to start healing him. The two Gokus warily sniffed at each other.
“My, my,” purred Ukoku-Ni. “Isn’t this interesting? When did you say I had you in my laboratory, Mister Glasses?”
Hakkai flung a lazy ball of chi at the dark priest, but the Muten flared and it vanished. “Oh,” he said lightly, “that was right before I destroyed Gyumaoh’s body and wrecked your lab and all your equipment.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” Ni chided as he leaped to avoid two crescent blades and blocked Goku’s staff mid-air. “I’m certain I would have taken...precautions.”
The smile Hakkai gave him was cold and sharp as a scalpel. “You did. They were insufficient.”
Ni frowned and made that flicking gesture at the other Goku as he charged him - and went flying back as the invisible attack hit. That got a startled look, and he flicked at Goku, but the boy took the blow with hardly more than a grunt.
“Come on,” taunted the boy, staff making the dark priest jump. “Can’t you hit harder than that? I barely felt it.”
Still frowning, Ni flicked at Gojyo with one hand and the other Gojyo with the other. The other Gojyo got knocked on his back while Gojyo blocked with one forearm and sent the crescent blade of his polearm shooting out with the other. After leaping, blocking, and leaping again, he landed on a branch and extended both hands to flick. The other Hakkai cried out as he was knocked back away from the battered Sanzo, but a tight bead of chi impacted the hand stretched towards Hakkai, making Ukoku bite back a cry of pain and shake the hand, flexing the fingers as if making sure they all still worked.
“I don’t understand,” protested Hazel.
Gat grunted and fired both pistols rapidly at the dark priest, but the Muten flared invisibly and none of the bullets hit - and from behind, Goku’s foot slammed the dark priest face-first to the ground. The boy jumped away instantly, neatly taking himself out of the path of the chi blast that sent Ukoku-Ni flying, forcing him to teleport before he hit the tree he was going towards. When he straightened, the Muten was glowing slightly and waving as though in a stiff breeze.
“You’re holding back, Mister Glasses,” he taunted, violet negating the ball of chi that came towards him at those words. “Why don’t you remove your inhibitors and show me what you can really do?”
“Haven’t you already seen it?” Hakkai asked blandly before that cold, sharp smile came back. “Ah, my apologies - you haven’t, because our counterparts haven’t yet reached Houtou Castle, have they?”
Ni-Ukoku dodged a Goku, a Gojyo, another Gojyo, and then took a fist to the face from Goku that sent him skidding to a stop with one hand on the ground for balance. “They have not,” he confirmed in a pouty voice. “It’s taking them so long that I got bored and went looking for them, but why are you three here in these mountains, and where is your Genjo Sanzo?”
“Close enough to hear you, asshole,” came Sanzo’s voice, floating in from the trees.
“Holding the path open,” murmured the dark priest. “But that shouldn’t be possible with - oh, of course!” He exchanged a flurry of blows from the pair of Gokus while using the Muten to negate attacks from the Gojyos and Gat, and wound up on yet another tree branch. “You’ve already been to Houtou Castle. You’re on your way back East, and little Genjo has successfully recovered the Seiten that Daddy Koumyu so carelessly lost that night.” Absently, he caught a Goku by the throat and held him as though examining a soiled shirt. “The real question is - why are your counterparts not at your level?”
He tossed the Goku into the path of the other Goku as he leaped from the branch moments before a crescent blade sliced through it, then dodged three blows from the other Gojyo before landing a solid hit to the other hanyou’s solar plexus.
Goku looked at the other Goku and shrugged. “I dunno. Fighting Homura did make me a lot stronger, though!”
“Homura?” asked three voices in different flavors of confusion, while a fourth made it sound like a challenge.
“Yeah,” Gojyo drawled. “War Prince I’m-Gonna-Destroy-The-World-Or-Die-Trying Homura and his two asshole lackeys, Zenon and Shien.”
“Shien wasn’t an asshole,” Hakkai objected while casually lobbing loose chi blasts at Ni-Ukoku just to make him dodge or negate them.
“Zenon was asshole enough for the both of them,” Gojyo pointed out.
Hakkai shrugged. “That’s true. We did have to push ourselves fairly hard to defeat them.”
“How interesting!” Ni-Ukoku exclaimed. “And did you also encounter a Hazel Grouse sharing his body with a youkai?”
Hazel started. “What?”
Ukoku-Ni smirked at him. “Oh, I thought you knew. Your ability to transfer souls - that belongs to the youkai who slew your master. He has been-”
The rest of the sentence was lost as Hazel began screaming, first with one voice and then with two, and then it was no longer Hazel but something wearing his body. “I thought he would never remember that night and set me free,” growled the youkai. “Now...let’s see if I can still fly.”
The other Sanzo party watched in horror as two black wings sprouted from Hazel’s back. Goku and Gojyo, however, kept up their attacks on Ni-Ukoku while Hakkai simply watched them all, hands ready to fire chi blasts.
“Hazel?” The other Goku asked in confusion.
Gat shook his head. “No. That is...”
“The great Vuraharu, and don’t any of you ever forget it,” snarled the thing wearing Hazel’s body.
The other Gojyo scratched the back of his head. “So Hazel, who hates all youkai, secretly had a youkai in his body the whole time?”
“That appears to be the case,” the other Hakkai said.
Vuraharu spread his hands and began laughing, then hurled balls of chi at Gat and the other Goku. While the other Hakkai did his best to help the other Sanzo limp out of the way, Vuraharu began using his wings to send blades of wind at them all, slicing through tree branches and the thinner trunks, laughing madly the whole time. When toppled foliage blocked his view of his targets, he turned to look for them and saw Hakkai. Both wings slashed at the made-youkai, but instead of scrambling to get out of the way, he simply stood there and watched impassively as the windblades impacted harmlessly against his chi-shield. Vuraharu snarled and hurled two balls of chi; Hakkai met them with two chi-balls of his own and then whipped two more at the other youkai, forcing him to block with his wings.
“You think you can take me, you bastard?” Vuraharu shouted, sending more blades of wind at him.
Hakkai blocked them with another barrier. “How rude,” he said mildly. “There is an excellent chance my parents were married. However, I am fairly confident in my ability to defeat you.”
“You?” Vuraharu sneered. “What makes you think you stand a chance against me?”
“Simple.” Hakkai flung a smaller - but more tightly-condensed - ball of chi at the other youkai, who hissed in pain as he blocked it with one wing. “Do you see these cuffs on my ear? Do you know what they are?” He directed a small, smug smile at the dark priest who was still dodging Goku and Gojyo, although starting to look slightly worse for the wear. “Mr. Ukoku, you know so much about everyone. Do you know where I got these?”
Gojyo let out a bark of laughter. “Fuck. I don’t even know where you got them.”
The smile Hakkai lavished on Vuraharu was sharp and cold. “They belonged to Hyakugan Maoh. I took them from his corpse. After I killed him. While I was still human.”
The winged youkai faltered. “Made-youkai? They’re not a myth?”
“Right?” Gojyo grabbed wrist of the hand shooting for his gut and absently hurled the dark priest towards a tree. “That was my reaction, too! But no, apparently it is possible. You just have to be one hell of a badass.”
“I could take them off, you know,” Hakkai said in a voice like velvet over steel. “Use the Minus Wave to amplify my abilities. Turn you into nothing but a smear and a memory.” He let the moment stretch. “But that won’t be necessary. You want me to stop holding back, Mr. Ukoku?”
The dark priest held Goku’s staff away from his face. “Please. I would very much like to see what you can do.”
“A little something I learned from Zenon,” Hakkai said lightly, both hands outstretched and cupped. He smiled at the choked-back exclaimation from Gojyo. “My own version of the Ma-Shin Gun.”
With no more warning than that, he unleashed a series of tight chi blasts that came out so fast, they almost formed a line and seemed to be a stream coming from his hands, one he directed up one of Vuraharu’s wings and down the other, peppering the appendages until the youkai collapsed in pain, wings dissipating, leaving the human body of Hazel Grouse unconscious. Then he turned the stream on Ukoku, following the dark priest as he leaped and dodged until he had to invoke the Muten to protect himself. When Hakkai let the assault die out, those black robes smoked slightly from numerous tiny holes, and Ni-Ukoku nearly fell as his legs threatened to give out. The menacing wave of the Muten scripture bought him time to catch his breath as both Goku and Gojyo held their attacks.
Into that silence charged Gat, shouting Hazel’s name and scooping the unconscious foreigner up to hold him protectively. The other four warily emerged from the arboreal wreckage to take in the sight of Gat cradling Hazel’s unconscious body and Ni-Ukoku perched on the eight-foot pillar that used to be a tree, breathing heavily and clearly using his scripture to hold any attackers at bay, with Hakkai standing exactly where he had been, calm and unruffled.
“What happened?” growled Sanzo. It was Hakkai he was looking at, but Hazel who answered.
“Vuraharu is...gone,” the foreigner said shakily. “Mister-” He stopped, licked his lips, and carefully started again. “Mister Hakkai,” he said with deliberate care, “was somehow able to exorcise him from me.”
“I killed him,” Hakkai corrected calmly. “Destabilized his chi. It was a bit tricky to do without hitting you, but thankfully he had these nice, big wings that he used to block attacks, so I focused on them.”
The other Hakkai gasped. “But his chi was so dense and strong - how were you able to destabilize it enough to kill him?”
“The chi of a god is like an iron wall,” Hakkai answered, strolling towards his counterpart. “Killing Shien was much more difficult. But with chi condensed tightly enough...”
Without warning, he shot a tight, bright ball of chi at Ni-Ukoku. The Muten lashed out, but before it could hit and negate, the ball exploded into dazzling light that had the dark priest cursing and rubbing his eyes. Gojyo’s crescent blade shot out before the light faded, narrowly missed hitting Ukoku-Ni - and instead, knocked the Muten off his shoulders.
As the scripture fluttered through the air, it curled itself into a scroll. And with a tiny kyuu! Hakuryuu dove down out of the sky to snatch it up and carry it back up into the clouds.
Ni-Ukoku laughed, tears streaming down his face, sounding somehow rueful and helpless, as if he’d been the victim of a good-natured, harmless prank. “Well done,” he exclaimed, applauding blindly. “I didn’t see that coming. I under-estimated you.”
“So did your counterpart,” Hakkai returned in a cool tone. “It cost him his laboratory, his position, the Minus Wave device, and any chance of resurrecting Gyumaoh.” The made-youkai stopped a handful of yards away from the trunk Ni-Ukoku was perched on. “It’s going to cost you more.”
The other Sanzo eyed Hakkai warily. “What are you planning?”
Hakkai ignored him. “Ni Jianyi,” he called, voice hard and sharp, “were you working with Chin Yisou in hopes of obtaining specimens for your experiments?”
The dark priest carefully shifted to sit on the severed trunk and, still blind, took out and lit a cigarette. “What would I possibly be able to obtain from him that I couldn’t get on my own?”
“Subjects that could bridge the gap between live youkai and dead humans,” Hakkai said grimly.
Ni-Ukoku took a deep drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke casually out in a stream. “I hadn’t dared hope for one such as you,” he said, his voice empty of amusement but holding a subtle threat. “Yes, it was a disappointment when your beloved Kanan killed herself. And now that you know that, what do you plan to do about it?”
The other Hakkai’s eyes widened as the implication sank in, causing the other Goku and the other Gojyo to cluster around him in concern as trauma shook him in its teeth.
Hakkai ignored it.
“Years ago,” he said in a quiet voice, “I vowed to not kill - or, if I had to kill, to only kill cleanly no matter how much worse was deserved. I kept that vow when I ripped the talisman out of Chin Yisou’s chest, destroying the shikigami he’d turned his body into. You, Ni Jianyi, deserve much worse - both for what you intended, and what you managed to accomplish.”
The bolt of chi that shot from Hakkai’s palm through the center of the dark priest’s forehead was as tight as the shaft of an arrow. A single drop of blood trickled slowly down from the tiny wound as the hand holding the cigarette fell heavily, fingers going slack. Then, as everyone watched, Ni-Ukoku’s body tipped to one side and fell to the ground with an inelegant thud.
He did not move.
“That was for Kanan,” Hakkai said darkly as Gojyo clasped his shoulder in silent reassurance. Then he looked up at his counterpart. “I apologize for stealing your kill.”
The other Hakkai smiled, still visibly shaken. “Ah, no apology necessary. I doubt I could have managed it myself.” The smile flickered out. “My only regret is that I was, once again, too slow and too weak to do what needed to be done.”
Hazel, shadowed by Gat, made his unsteady way up to the cluster that was forming near Ni-Unoku’s body. “Pardon my interruption. I’m afraid I do not quite grasp the significance of Mr. Ukoku’s involvement, but there is a more pressing issue weighing on me.” Grimly, he met the eyes of each chi-healer. “I am concerned that without having Vuraharu’s abilities to call on, Gat...”
When Hakkai only gave the bishop a blandly lost and helpless look, the other Hakkai brightened with determination. “This,” he said firmly, “I can do. I have been studying Gat, and the way his borrowed chi interacts with his body, and I believe I can...settle it.” He gave Hakkai a pointed look. “Provided, of course, that I do not spend all of my chi reserves healing Sanzo.”
Hakkai gave his counterpart a slight bow. “Of course.”
“I’m fine,” gowled the other Sanzo.
“You are not fine,” Hakkai corrected him blithely as he approached the priest. “You have significant internal organ damage and several fractured bones. Please sit or lay down so that I can repay my counterpart for stealing his kill by making sure you live.”
“Hey, Hakkai...” Goku looked between the two chi-healers. “You want me to...” He made a gesture with one hand. “Like with the lizards that one time.”
Hakkai gave him a genuine smile. “Ah, that would be appreciated.” To his confused counterpart, he said, “If your reserves begin to run low, Goku is volunteering some of his chi for your use.”
The other Goku shot his counterpart a grateful look, and the two of them followed Hazel and the other Hakkai as they led Gat to a place where he could lay down comfortably. Both Gojyos edged over towards Hakkai and his reluctant patient.
“What are you two looking at,” Sanzo demanded as he carefully eased himself down to lean against a severed trunk that used to be a tree.
“I’m just here in case he needs anything,” Gojyo said, hands up in disavowal as he sat to Hakkai’s left.
From Hakkai’s right, the other Gojyo mirrored the pose. “I just want to watch another Hakkai work. Professional interest.”
Hakkai simply knelt by his surly patient, green-glowing hands outstretched, his face blank as he concentrated on feeling out the damage. Sanzo glared at both hanyou, but when a handful of minutes passed in silence, snorted and looked away. Then he frowned.
“What’s that?” he asked, gesturing at something behind the Gojyos, who turned to look while Hakkai remained focused on what he was doing.
A smirk spread across Gojyo’s face and he lit a cigarette, drawing in a pleased breath. The other Gojyo chuckled.
Several feet away from Ni’s now-flaming body, Hakuryuu gave a satisfied kyuu and breathed another stream of fire at the corpse, one tiny foot on the Muten scripture in front of her.
“Oi, Sanzo,” drawled the other Gojyo, “who’s gonna inherit that thing now that he’s dead?”
“Why are you asking me?” Sanzo asked.
Just then, the other Goku’s voice floated over. “Hey! Sanzo! Gat has a red mark on his forehead just like yours!”
As Hakkai’s focus pulled back inside himself and Sanzo shifted to stand up, Gojyo held a cigarette out to him. The priest gave him a suspucious look but took it, and the hanyou followed up by holding his lighter out for him.
“You’re not my Sanzo,” he said by way of explanation. “I can do a nice thing for you and neither of us will have to deal with it ever again.”
Sanzo laughed softly as he exhaled. “You have a good point. So, what exactly did Ukoku have to do with Chin Yisou?”
Hakkai sat back on his heels and took a deep breath. “He needed a specimen that bridged human and youkai. Kanan was pregnant with a rape-child, and she killed herself rather than bear it.”
The two Gojyos exchanged an eloquent look.
“Burn him again,” the other Gojyo called to Hakuryuu, who chirped acknowledgment and spat another stream of flames at the corpse.
“...she may also have been chosen in the hopes that I would do exactly what I did: become a youkai by slaughtering my way to her side.”
Gojyo stood and stretched. “I gotta take a leak. Be right back.”
Nonchalantly, he sauntered over to the burning corpse. The hissing of liquid on flames floated back a moment later.
The other Gojyo also stood. “You know what? Me too.”
“You okay?” Sanzo asked Hakkai quietly enough that the other two would not hear.
“I’ll be fine. I handled it a lot worse when I initially found out.”
“Worse how?” the priest asked warily.
“Turned into a sixty-foot monster under the effects of the Minus Wave and trashed Ni’s lab. Turns out I’m powerful enough to be a Maoh in my own right, and I haven’t come to terms with that yet.”
Sanzo snorted. “Haven’t told your Sanzo or Gojyo, have you.”
“And I don’t intend to.”
“Not my problem,” Sanzo said with a shrug. “I’m going to go see what’s going on with Gat.”
The other Hakkai was sweating slightly when they joined the cluster around Gat, one hand on the big man’s shoulder and the other pressing Goku’s hand to Gat’s chest.
“Mr. Glasses is stitching chi into each part of his body,” Hazel said absently as their presence registered.
“It’s not as simple as he makes it sound,” the other Hakkai said tightly. “If it weren’t for your Goku’s chi, it would be an impossible task.”
The other Goku looked up. “Gat has a red dot like yours. He says he didn’t have it the last time he looked, but he doesn’t know how long ago that was.”
“I guess that answers that,” Hakkai murmured to the priest, who grunted. “Ah, I would like to check you over,” he said to Hazel. “Make sure I did not cause any lasting injury earlier.”
Hazel started. “Of course. Forgive my distraction; this has been a very eventful day. And...thank you for your consideration,” he said in a humbled tone.
The other Goku snorted. “He doesn’t know why you came to Togenkyo. He doesn’t have a reason to not be considerate.”
“I...wanted to exterminate all mon- youkai. I won’t try to defend my actions.”
“It is not my place to judge,” Hakkai replied quietly, green-glowing hands checking Hazel’s back. “Has my counterpart told you how he came to be wearing youkai power inhibitors?”
That made Hazel blink. “I didn’t even question it. But...I remember...while Vuraharu was...”
“I was born human. Grew up an orphan, angry at the world,” the other Hakkai said, most of his attention on one of Gat’s hands.
Hakkai picked up the thread. “Then I met Kanan, and for the first time, I was happy. But she was abducted by the Dark Crow clan and brought to Hyakugan Maoh to be raped and eaten. I was outraged that the villagers hadn’t even tried to defend her while I was away. They offered her up willingly because it meant the Dark Crow would leave their wives and daughters alone. I...” His hands trembled. “It’s...hard to remember that time, but I’m fairly sure I killed them all.”
Hazel gasped.
“I killed my way through the Dark Crow, trying to find where they’d taken my wife. I found her in the dungeons of Hyakugan Maoh’s keep, but by then, I’d killed too many.” Hakkai took a deep breath. “I had already started to change. I took the inhibitors the youkai lord had been wearing when I killed him, put them on, and didn’t take them off for close to four years.”
The other Hakkai looked up from Gat’s hand. “There is a legend,” he said, “that one who bathes in the blood of a thousand youkai will become a youkai. When you so blithely asserted that all youkai hate humans...” He moved slightly to lay one hand on Gat’s thigh. “Gojyo was born out of wedlock, but he was not a product of rape. His youkai father was very fond of his human mother.”
For a handful of minutes, there was only silence.
“Vuraharu doesn’t seem to have caused any damage, either in being present or in being removed,” Hakkai said, sitting back on his heels. “How do you feel?”
“Ashamed,” Hazel answered dryly. “I am going to need to re-evaluate many things, but it is quite obvious that my actions have not been as morally correct as I thought.”
Hakkai gave him a dry smile. “I’m not sure what you’ve done, but I committed genocide - not because I thought it was the correct thing to do, but because I was angry enough that I didn’t care who I was killing.”
“You’re not going to win,” Gojyo said, startling the other two by dropping into a crouch next to them, one hand casually on Hakkai’s shoulder. “Hakkai here is the master of psychological judo. Just accept that whatever you’ve done isn’t as bad as what he’s done, and move on.”
From the hanyou’s shoulder, Hakuryuu chirped agreement.
The other Gojyo sauntered up and crouched by Gat, across from the others, a scroll held in one hand. “So I guess this is yours now,” he said, handing it to the surprised man. “Oh, and your eyes are brown now, did you know that?”
That startled Hazel out of his thoughts. “They are! You’re...you’re really alive again, aren’t you?”
The other Goku brightened. “That’s great!”
“Finished,” gasped the other Hakkai, lifting his hands and sitting back. “Your chi is now properly tied to your body again. You will need to eat, and sleep, and you will tire. And,” he continued dryly, “it seems you are now the bearer of the Muten scripture. Congratulations, Priest Gat Sanzo.”
The normally-stoic man looked startled beyond words.
“You should probably report to a temple,” Sanzo said casually. “I can give you directions to the closest one.”
“I...thank you,” Gat said slowly. “I did not expect to have a fate past what I had been.”
Hazel smiled, but he looked about to cry. “Congratulations!”
“We will set out right away,” declared Gat.
Startled out of his impending tears, Hazel blurted, “We?”
Gat favored him with the ghost of a smile. “I would not have this fate without you. Now I am your fate, and you’re coming with me. From now on, I will bear responsibility for your life.”
For a long moment, Hazel gaped in shock. Then the tears broke free and he smiled through them. “I understand.”
“Are you all finished now?” demanded Sanzo’s disembodied voice.
“Yeah, yeah,” called Gojyo as he stood up. “We’re comin’ back, don’t worry.”
The Gokus grinned and high-fived each other.
“Thank you,” the other Hakkai said quietly.
Hakkai shook his head. “Thank you.”
“Kyuu,” announced Hakuryuu, launching herself from Gojyo’s shoulder to lead the way back. The other three gave awkward nods and waves to the rest of the goup and followed her through the woods in silence. No one said anything until they’d filed back through the shimmering hole in reality, which closed behind them and then disappeared with the rest of the barely-visible dimensional barrier.
“Well?” demanded Sanzo irritably.
Gojyo stretched smugly. “He’s dead. Hakyryuu set his corpse on fire and I pissed on it.”
Sanzo gave him a flatly unamused look.
“I killed him,” Hakkai said quietly. “It was clean.”
“And the Muten?” Sanzo asked.
“In good hands. I think,” Hakkai amended himself. “If the other Goku and Hakkai are to be trusted, he’s a good man.”
“They didn’t fight Homura,” Goku announced. “I’m not sure why we did and they didn’t, but it made us way stronger.”
“It’s true,” Hakkai added. “Our counterparts were significantly weaker. And they haven’t reached Houtou Castle yet.”
“Not our problem,” repeated Sanzo. “Our problem is finding someplace to make camp before it gets too dark to see.”
Hakkai reached up to stroke the neck of the dragon on his shoulder. “Hakuryuu?”
“Kyuu,” she agreed, and flitted off to scout for a suitable camping spot. Goku followed her eagerly, with Sanzo trailing him, and Gojyo hung back until the other two were far enough away to not hear.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
Hakkai nodded. “Knowing that I was able to do that much to help because of how powerful I am...makes it easier to deal with the fact that I am that powerful.”
Gojyo nodded, but did not move as Hakkai began following the others.
“You sure are,” he said quietly, hands in his pockets, thankful for the loose material of his pants. “You sure are.”
On the narrow mountain path, four men paused.
Goku blinked. “Did you say something, Sanzo?”
The priest scowled. “No.”
At the back of the party, Gojyo snorted. “Sure sounded like you.”
“Shut up,” snapped Sanzo. “Do you feel that?”
“Feel wh-” the hanyou stopped mid-word as Hakkai shot him a warning glance.
“I feel it,”Hakkai assured Sanzo quietly, absently petting the white dragon on his shoulder.
“Feel what? Ow!” Goku turned to glare at Gojyo, one hand on the ear that had been flicked. “What’s the big idea, you-” Between one word and the next, he stopped and sniffed the air. “Something smells weird.”
Hands in his pockets, Gojyo scowled but said nothing.
“It’s this way,” Goku said, pointing.
Before any of them could take a single step, a new voice floated through the trees. “It’s never been this way before, has it,” the voice said in a mocking tone, “Genjo Sanzo, thirty-first of China?”
Goku looked up at the priest with curious golden eyes. “Who’s that?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“But he knows you!”
“Every priest in Togenkyo knows me,” Sanzo snapped. Then he fixed Hakkai with a demanding look. “What.”
“I know that voice,” the made-youkai said in a subdued tone. “He was responsible for the revival experiments. He got away.”
Sanzo visibly weighed the pros and cons of following the voice.
“Your childhood name was Kouryu,” the voice said lightly.
Almost before the word ended, Sanzo stiffened and he ignored Goku asking what was so bad about that name. The hammer of Sanzo’s banishing gun clicked ominously as he raised it, fury radiating from every pore of his body, and the other three went so still they may have been holding their breaths. “Goku? Find him. He’s not getting away this time.”
Goku took point, sniffing his way through the trees while Sanzo stalked after him, Hakkai and Gojyo following a healthy, respectful distance behind the priest and Hakuryuu flitting ahead with Goku. Although he couldn’t see the blue-and-green sparks coming off the Maten and Seiten scriptures on Sanzo’s shoulders the way Hakkai could, Gojyo could feel the other man’s deadly rage as the voice calmly sketched out Sanzo’s origins.
“You’re not surprised,” he muttered to Hakkai. “You knew?”
“That name, who it belonged to, and how he feels about it?”Hakkai responded quietly. “Yes.”
“What’s the deal with that guy?” Gojyo asked glancing at the other man without turning his head. “You’re rattled.”
“He was working with Chin Yisou.”
The words were crisp, clipped, and absolutely devoid of any emotion, and that told the hanyou exactly how much the other man was holding back.
“Got it,” he said, letting the subject drop.
“Bullshit?” the voice asked in response to a comment none of them heard. “On what grounds? You should be the one that knows best of all - on that day, at that time...what happened the night you inherited the title ‘Sanzo’?”
Goku glanced back over his shoulder. “He sounds like he’s talking to you, but you didn’t say anything.”
“Just keep tracking him,” snarled the priest as the floating voice tauntingly declared that his predecessor had sacrificed himself to protect his protégée.
For several moments, there was only the quiet sounds of four men picking a path between trees and bushes. Then the voice laughed quietly, a smug sound that set Sanzo’s teeth on edge and brought a hardness to the neutral expression on Hakkai’s face. Another pause, this one longer, and then the voice began to lay out the details of one Gati Nenehawk, his origins and the events of his death, and then his subsequent resurrection by means of having a ‘monster’ soul transferred into his body, leaving him a living corpse banished from his home and following the man who’d killed and resurrected him.
Goku came to a stop. “There’s a barrier here,” he said, pointing at a faint shimmer in the air, like the iridescent surface of a soap bubble.
Without a word, Sanzo fired the banishing gun and the shimmer pulled back, leaving a hole. “Keep going. Find him and kill him.”
“Aren’t you coming?” Goku asked.
“Not if you want to ever get back,” he answered. “No,” he said as Goku opened his mouth in confusion. “I’ll explain later. After you kill that son of a bitch.”
“Muten?” Hakkai asked in a low voice as he and Gojyo picked their way to the hole in the barrier.
“And Maten,” Sanzo answered grimly.
Gojyo looked very much like he wanted to ask a question, but the grim nod the words got from Hakkai made him hold his tongue.
“That is a fair argument,” the voice conceded as the three passed through the barrier, Hakuryuu winging her way upwards to scout ahead. “However, information will warp with the introduction of emotion.” The voice was no longer distant and floaty, but sounded like it was mere yards away, and figures could be seen through the trees just ahead.
Without warning, Hakkai darted ahead and broke into the clearing, clapping his hands in a slow, mocking way. “Amazing!” he declared, condescendingly. “Truly amazing! Do me next.”
The other two stepped out into the clearing to see a dark-haired man in a black version of Sanzo’s robes staring at them in surprise, a familiar-looking scripture draped over his shoulders.
“Oh? Do you?” Light glinted off the dark priest’s glasses.
“Yes,” Hakkai answered firmly. “Lay out the details of my life, like you did for Sanzo and Gat.”
“Are you sure?” The dark priest’s voice was equally consescending. “You may not like what you hear.”
“I want to hear it,” insisted Hakkai, an edge creeping into his voice. “I want to know the name of the woman who abandoned me.”
Off to the side, a foreigner that could only be Bishop Hazel moved to stand next to the mountain of a man holding two impressively-sized revolvers. “M-Mister Glasses?” he exclaimed in incredulous shock.
Hakkai didn’t even spare him a glance. “I prefer being called by my name,” he said in a voice like ice.
The dark priest smirked. “Cho Hakkai. A youkai. Formerly a human named Cho Gonou. You went on a killing spree trying to find and save your precious love, Kanan. Too bad you were too late.”
“You mean,” Hakkai countered evenly, “too bad she killed herself before you could perform your vile experiments on her.”
Gojyo glanced between his friend and the dark priest uneasily while Goku looked lost but unwilling to speak up.
“Oh? Whatever do you mean?”
Hakkai wasn’t fazed by his tone of innocent confusion. “You know what I’m talking about. I know who you are.”
“And who am I, then?” the dark man asked smugly.
“Dr. Ni Jianyi, a scientist in the employ of Gyokumen Koshu, in charge of the Great Experiment. The revival of Gyumaoh,” Hakkai clarified.
“Oho! You do know me!” Although he sounded pleased, there was an edge of threat in his voice. “The question is - how?”
Hakkai smiled, but it was cruel and cold. “I’ll leave it to your imagination.”
The foreigner turned to the dark priest. “Mr. Ukoku??”
Ni-Ukoku shrugged.
On the far side of the clearing, past both Hazel and the man who could only be Gat, a pale shape struggling to pick itself up off the ground growled, “All of you, shut up.”
Goku started. “Sanzo?”
The priest didn’t answer, all his effort being spent trying to force his battered body to obey him. Goku sniffed, then turned and sniffed the way they’d come. “Hakkai...”
“That’s why he stayed,” the other man said quietly.
Goku nodded while Hazel protested that Sanzo shouldn’t move, all his limbs should be broken, and got told to shut up for his trouble.
“Don’t get in my way,” snarled the battered priest.
Ni-Ukoku lit a cigarette. “My, aren’t we desperate? Are you that embarassed?” he asked mockingly, ignoring the newcomers in favor of watching Sanzo struggle to his feet.
“Mr. Ukoku,” Hakkai called politely. When that failed to get a response, he shot a concentrated point of chi at the dark priest, destroying the cigarette in the other man’s mouth. “It’s rude to ignore your opponents,” he chided when that got him a startled look.
Ni-Ukoku laughed again, the amused mocking that they’d heard before. “Alright, you got me. I’ll play with you for a little bit,” he said, as if humoring a small child.
Slowly, deliberately, he raised one hand and made a flicking motion. Goku’s head rocked back as if he’d been struck in the face, and he exclaimed more out of surprise than out of pain. A second flicking motion, but Gojyo already had his forearms crossed to block it, and merely grunted. The third impacted harmlessly off the shimmering semicircle of chi curving around Hakkai.
“Is that it?” Goku asked eagerly. Without waiting for an answer, he launched himself into the air towards the dark priest with an anticipatory shout.
Gojyo moved his cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other and wordlessly clapped Hakkai on the shoulder, and then he was halfway across the clearing with his polearm out, hair trailing behind him like a banner. Hakkai merely stood where he was, hands up as if caught mid-shrug, eyes following the motions of the dark priest.
While Hazel watched, mouth slackly open in shocked surprise, Ukoku leaped backwards to avoid Goku’s descent, only to get one leg pulled out from beneath him by the chain of Gojyo’s polearm and land hard on his back. In an instant, he was back on his feet and leaping to avoid Goku again, landing on the branch of a nearby tree with a tsk-tsk sound.
“How sudden! Don’t you normally have a little more of an extended banter with the enemy? Don’t you want to know what my goal is?”
The crescent blade of Gojyo’s polearm sliced the branch away from the trunk, causing the dark priest to jump hastily into the air, where Goku met him with a solid strike from his staff.
“Nah,” called the hanyou. “Don’t care.”
“Make sure you stay far away from his abilities!” Sanzo shouted before coughing up a mouthful of blood.
Both Goku and Ukoku landed neatly, but the dark priest jumped again to avoid Gojyo charging at him, one foot out as he arced gracefully through the air, toe extended to land lightly on the top of the hanyou’s head and use him as a stepping stone - but as his foot made contact, Gojyo’s hand clamped tightly around his ankle. The redhead threw himself backwards, using his inertia to hurl his opponent face-first at the ground. As soon as the hand released his ankle, before he landed, there was an invisible flare of violet and Ukoku vanished to land on one knee a safe distance away.
The loose ball of chi that slammed into his back forced him to flicker again before he ate dirt.
“Incredible!” Ni-Ukoku called out from another tree branch. “You three are even more marvelous specimens than I thought! I’d like to bring you all back to my laboratory.”
“You already had me there,” Hakkai said calmly, another burst of chi making the dark priest jump again, use the Muten scripture to dissolve the chain that wrapped around his body, and kick off of Goku to land awkwardly some distance away, only to have to use the Muten again to negate the third chi blast. “It didn’t go so well for you.”
The scientist-priest frowned. “When was this? I’m certain I would have remembered that.”
A commotion from over by Hazel and Gat distracted the combatants, who all turned to see that three more people had entered the clearing: a redhead in a leather jacket, a boy with wild brown hair, and a slender man in a green tunic.
The other Gojyo was the first to react. “What the hell?”
Gojyo snorted. “The cosplayers are getting out of hand, but these ones can stay.”
Hazel stammered something incoherent while Sanzo growled about more bullshit and the other Hakkai rushed over to start healing him. The two Gokus warily sniffed at each other.
“My, my,” purred Ukoku-Ni. “Isn’t this interesting? When did you say I had you in my laboratory, Mister Glasses?”
Hakkai flung a lazy ball of chi at the dark priest, but the Muten flared and it vanished. “Oh,” he said lightly, “that was right before I destroyed Gyumaoh’s body and wrecked your lab and all your equipment.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” Ni chided as he leaped to avoid two crescent blades and blocked Goku’s staff mid-air. “I’m certain I would have taken...precautions.”
The smile Hakkai gave him was cold and sharp as a scalpel. “You did. They were insufficient.”
Ni frowned and made that flicking gesture at the other Goku as he charged him - and went flying back as the invisible attack hit. That got a startled look, and he flicked at Goku, but the boy took the blow with hardly more than a grunt.
“Come on,” taunted the boy, staff making the dark priest jump. “Can’t you hit harder than that? I barely felt it.”
Still frowning, Ni flicked at Gojyo with one hand and the other Gojyo with the other. The other Gojyo got knocked on his back while Gojyo blocked with one forearm and sent the crescent blade of his polearm shooting out with the other. After leaping, blocking, and leaping again, he landed on a branch and extended both hands to flick. The other Hakkai cried out as he was knocked back away from the battered Sanzo, but a tight bead of chi impacted the hand stretched towards Hakkai, making Ukoku bite back a cry of pain and shake the hand, flexing the fingers as if making sure they all still worked.
“I don’t understand,” protested Hazel.
Gat grunted and fired both pistols rapidly at the dark priest, but the Muten flared invisibly and none of the bullets hit - and from behind, Goku’s foot slammed the dark priest face-first to the ground. The boy jumped away instantly, neatly taking himself out of the path of the chi blast that sent Ukoku-Ni flying, forcing him to teleport before he hit the tree he was going towards. When he straightened, the Muten was glowing slightly and waving as though in a stiff breeze.
“You’re holding back, Mister Glasses,” he taunted, violet negating the ball of chi that came towards him at those words. “Why don’t you remove your inhibitors and show me what you can really do?”
“Haven’t you already seen it?” Hakkai asked blandly before that cold, sharp smile came back. “Ah, my apologies - you haven’t, because our counterparts haven’t yet reached Houtou Castle, have they?”
Ni-Ukoku dodged a Goku, a Gojyo, another Gojyo, and then took a fist to the face from Goku that sent him skidding to a stop with one hand on the ground for balance. “They have not,” he confirmed in a pouty voice. “It’s taking them so long that I got bored and went looking for them, but why are you three here in these mountains, and where is your Genjo Sanzo?”
“Close enough to hear you, asshole,” came Sanzo’s voice, floating in from the trees.
“Holding the path open,” murmured the dark priest. “But that shouldn’t be possible with - oh, of course!” He exchanged a flurry of blows from the pair of Gokus while using the Muten to negate attacks from the Gojyos and Gat, and wound up on yet another tree branch. “You’ve already been to Houtou Castle. You’re on your way back East, and little Genjo has successfully recovered the Seiten that Daddy Koumyu so carelessly lost that night.” Absently, he caught a Goku by the throat and held him as though examining a soiled shirt. “The real question is - why are your counterparts not at your level?”
He tossed the Goku into the path of the other Goku as he leaped from the branch moments before a crescent blade sliced through it, then dodged three blows from the other Gojyo before landing a solid hit to the other hanyou’s solar plexus.
Goku looked at the other Goku and shrugged. “I dunno. Fighting Homura did make me a lot stronger, though!”
“Homura?” asked three voices in different flavors of confusion, while a fourth made it sound like a challenge.
“Yeah,” Gojyo drawled. “War Prince I’m-Gonna-Destroy-The-World-Or-Die-Trying Homura and his two asshole lackeys, Zenon and Shien.”
“Shien wasn’t an asshole,” Hakkai objected while casually lobbing loose chi blasts at Ni-Ukoku just to make him dodge or negate them.
“Zenon was asshole enough for the both of them,” Gojyo pointed out.
Hakkai shrugged. “That’s true. We did have to push ourselves fairly hard to defeat them.”
“How interesting!” Ni-Ukoku exclaimed. “And did you also encounter a Hazel Grouse sharing his body with a youkai?”
Hazel started. “What?”
Ukoku-Ni smirked at him. “Oh, I thought you knew. Your ability to transfer souls - that belongs to the youkai who slew your master. He has been-”
The rest of the sentence was lost as Hazel began screaming, first with one voice and then with two, and then it was no longer Hazel but something wearing his body. “I thought he would never remember that night and set me free,” growled the youkai. “Now...let’s see if I can still fly.”
The other Sanzo party watched in horror as two black wings sprouted from Hazel’s back. Goku and Gojyo, however, kept up their attacks on Ni-Ukoku while Hakkai simply watched them all, hands ready to fire chi blasts.
“Hazel?” The other Goku asked in confusion.
Gat shook his head. “No. That is...”
“The great Vuraharu, and don’t any of you ever forget it,” snarled the thing wearing Hazel’s body.
The other Gojyo scratched the back of his head. “So Hazel, who hates all youkai, secretly had a youkai in his body the whole time?”
“That appears to be the case,” the other Hakkai said.
Vuraharu spread his hands and began laughing, then hurled balls of chi at Gat and the other Goku. While the other Hakkai did his best to help the other Sanzo limp out of the way, Vuraharu began using his wings to send blades of wind at them all, slicing through tree branches and the thinner trunks, laughing madly the whole time. When toppled foliage blocked his view of his targets, he turned to look for them and saw Hakkai. Both wings slashed at the made-youkai, but instead of scrambling to get out of the way, he simply stood there and watched impassively as the windblades impacted harmlessly against his chi-shield. Vuraharu snarled and hurled two balls of chi; Hakkai met them with two chi-balls of his own and then whipped two more at the other youkai, forcing him to block with his wings.
“You think you can take me, you bastard?” Vuraharu shouted, sending more blades of wind at him.
Hakkai blocked them with another barrier. “How rude,” he said mildly. “There is an excellent chance my parents were married. However, I am fairly confident in my ability to defeat you.”
“You?” Vuraharu sneered. “What makes you think you stand a chance against me?”
“Simple.” Hakkai flung a smaller - but more tightly-condensed - ball of chi at the other youkai, who hissed in pain as he blocked it with one wing. “Do you see these cuffs on my ear? Do you know what they are?” He directed a small, smug smile at the dark priest who was still dodging Goku and Gojyo, although starting to look slightly worse for the wear. “Mr. Ukoku, you know so much about everyone. Do you know where I got these?”
Gojyo let out a bark of laughter. “Fuck. I don’t even know where you got them.”
The smile Hakkai lavished on Vuraharu was sharp and cold. “They belonged to Hyakugan Maoh. I took them from his corpse. After I killed him. While I was still human.”
The winged youkai faltered. “Made-youkai? They’re not a myth?”
“Right?” Gojyo grabbed wrist of the hand shooting for his gut and absently hurled the dark priest towards a tree. “That was my reaction, too! But no, apparently it is possible. You just have to be one hell of a badass.”
“I could take them off, you know,” Hakkai said in a voice like velvet over steel. “Use the Minus Wave to amplify my abilities. Turn you into nothing but a smear and a memory.” He let the moment stretch. “But that won’t be necessary. You want me to stop holding back, Mr. Ukoku?”
The dark priest held Goku’s staff away from his face. “Please. I would very much like to see what you can do.”
“A little something I learned from Zenon,” Hakkai said lightly, both hands outstretched and cupped. He smiled at the choked-back exclaimation from Gojyo. “My own version of the Ma-Shin Gun.”
With no more warning than that, he unleashed a series of tight chi blasts that came out so fast, they almost formed a line and seemed to be a stream coming from his hands, one he directed up one of Vuraharu’s wings and down the other, peppering the appendages until the youkai collapsed in pain, wings dissipating, leaving the human body of Hazel Grouse unconscious. Then he turned the stream on Ukoku, following the dark priest as he leaped and dodged until he had to invoke the Muten to protect himself. When Hakkai let the assault die out, those black robes smoked slightly from numerous tiny holes, and Ni-Ukoku nearly fell as his legs threatened to give out. The menacing wave of the Muten scripture bought him time to catch his breath as both Goku and Gojyo held their attacks.
Into that silence charged Gat, shouting Hazel’s name and scooping the unconscious foreigner up to hold him protectively. The other four warily emerged from the arboreal wreckage to take in the sight of Gat cradling Hazel’s unconscious body and Ni-Ukoku perched on the eight-foot pillar that used to be a tree, breathing heavily and clearly using his scripture to hold any attackers at bay, with Hakkai standing exactly where he had been, calm and unruffled.
“What happened?” growled Sanzo. It was Hakkai he was looking at, but Hazel who answered.
“Vuraharu is...gone,” the foreigner said shakily. “Mister-” He stopped, licked his lips, and carefully started again. “Mister Hakkai,” he said with deliberate care, “was somehow able to exorcise him from me.”
“I killed him,” Hakkai corrected calmly. “Destabilized his chi. It was a bit tricky to do without hitting you, but thankfully he had these nice, big wings that he used to block attacks, so I focused on them.”
The other Hakkai gasped. “But his chi was so dense and strong - how were you able to destabilize it enough to kill him?”
“The chi of a god is like an iron wall,” Hakkai answered, strolling towards his counterpart. “Killing Shien was much more difficult. But with chi condensed tightly enough...”
Without warning, he shot a tight, bright ball of chi at Ni-Ukoku. The Muten lashed out, but before it could hit and negate, the ball exploded into dazzling light that had the dark priest cursing and rubbing his eyes. Gojyo’s crescent blade shot out before the light faded, narrowly missed hitting Ukoku-Ni - and instead, knocked the Muten off his shoulders.
As the scripture fluttered through the air, it curled itself into a scroll. And with a tiny kyuu! Hakuryuu dove down out of the sky to snatch it up and carry it back up into the clouds.
Ni-Ukoku laughed, tears streaming down his face, sounding somehow rueful and helpless, as if he’d been the victim of a good-natured, harmless prank. “Well done,” he exclaimed, applauding blindly. “I didn’t see that coming. I under-estimated you.”
“So did your counterpart,” Hakkai returned in a cool tone. “It cost him his laboratory, his position, the Minus Wave device, and any chance of resurrecting Gyumaoh.” The made-youkai stopped a handful of yards away from the trunk Ni-Ukoku was perched on. “It’s going to cost you more.”
The other Sanzo eyed Hakkai warily. “What are you planning?”
Hakkai ignored him. “Ni Jianyi,” he called, voice hard and sharp, “were you working with Chin Yisou in hopes of obtaining specimens for your experiments?”
The dark priest carefully shifted to sit on the severed trunk and, still blind, took out and lit a cigarette. “What would I possibly be able to obtain from him that I couldn’t get on my own?”
“Subjects that could bridge the gap between live youkai and dead humans,” Hakkai said grimly.
Ni-Ukoku took a deep drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke casually out in a stream. “I hadn’t dared hope for one such as you,” he said, his voice empty of amusement but holding a subtle threat. “Yes, it was a disappointment when your beloved Kanan killed herself. And now that you know that, what do you plan to do about it?”
The other Hakkai’s eyes widened as the implication sank in, causing the other Goku and the other Gojyo to cluster around him in concern as trauma shook him in its teeth.
Hakkai ignored it.
“Years ago,” he said in a quiet voice, “I vowed to not kill - or, if I had to kill, to only kill cleanly no matter how much worse was deserved. I kept that vow when I ripped the talisman out of Chin Yisou’s chest, destroying the shikigami he’d turned his body into. You, Ni Jianyi, deserve much worse - both for what you intended, and what you managed to accomplish.”
The bolt of chi that shot from Hakkai’s palm through the center of the dark priest’s forehead was as tight as the shaft of an arrow. A single drop of blood trickled slowly down from the tiny wound as the hand holding the cigarette fell heavily, fingers going slack. Then, as everyone watched, Ni-Ukoku’s body tipped to one side and fell to the ground with an inelegant thud.
He did not move.
“That was for Kanan,” Hakkai said darkly as Gojyo clasped his shoulder in silent reassurance. Then he looked up at his counterpart. “I apologize for stealing your kill.”
The other Hakkai smiled, still visibly shaken. “Ah, no apology necessary. I doubt I could have managed it myself.” The smile flickered out. “My only regret is that I was, once again, too slow and too weak to do what needed to be done.”
Hazel, shadowed by Gat, made his unsteady way up to the cluster that was forming near Ni-Unoku’s body. “Pardon my interruption. I’m afraid I do not quite grasp the significance of Mr. Ukoku’s involvement, but there is a more pressing issue weighing on me.” Grimly, he met the eyes of each chi-healer. “I am concerned that without having Vuraharu’s abilities to call on, Gat...”
When Hakkai only gave the bishop a blandly lost and helpless look, the other Hakkai brightened with determination. “This,” he said firmly, “I can do. I have been studying Gat, and the way his borrowed chi interacts with his body, and I believe I can...settle it.” He gave Hakkai a pointed look. “Provided, of course, that I do not spend all of my chi reserves healing Sanzo.”
Hakkai gave his counterpart a slight bow. “Of course.”
“I’m fine,” gowled the other Sanzo.
“You are not fine,” Hakkai corrected him blithely as he approached the priest. “You have significant internal organ damage and several fractured bones. Please sit or lay down so that I can repay my counterpart for stealing his kill by making sure you live.”
“Hey, Hakkai...” Goku looked between the two chi-healers. “You want me to...” He made a gesture with one hand. “Like with the lizards that one time.”
Hakkai gave him a genuine smile. “Ah, that would be appreciated.” To his confused counterpart, he said, “If your reserves begin to run low, Goku is volunteering some of his chi for your use.”
The other Goku shot his counterpart a grateful look, and the two of them followed Hazel and the other Hakkai as they led Gat to a place where he could lay down comfortably. Both Gojyos edged over towards Hakkai and his reluctant patient.
“What are you two looking at,” Sanzo demanded as he carefully eased himself down to lean against a severed trunk that used to be a tree.
“I’m just here in case he needs anything,” Gojyo said, hands up in disavowal as he sat to Hakkai’s left.
From Hakkai’s right, the other Gojyo mirrored the pose. “I just want to watch another Hakkai work. Professional interest.”
Hakkai simply knelt by his surly patient, green-glowing hands outstretched, his face blank as he concentrated on feeling out the damage. Sanzo glared at both hanyou, but when a handful of minutes passed in silence, snorted and looked away. Then he frowned.
“What’s that?” he asked, gesturing at something behind the Gojyos, who turned to look while Hakkai remained focused on what he was doing.
A smirk spread across Gojyo’s face and he lit a cigarette, drawing in a pleased breath. The other Gojyo chuckled.
Several feet away from Ni’s now-flaming body, Hakuryuu gave a satisfied kyuu and breathed another stream of fire at the corpse, one tiny foot on the Muten scripture in front of her.
“Oi, Sanzo,” drawled the other Gojyo, “who’s gonna inherit that thing now that he’s dead?”
“Why are you asking me?” Sanzo asked.
Just then, the other Goku’s voice floated over. “Hey! Sanzo! Gat has a red mark on his forehead just like yours!”
As Hakkai’s focus pulled back inside himself and Sanzo shifted to stand up, Gojyo held a cigarette out to him. The priest gave him a suspucious look but took it, and the hanyou followed up by holding his lighter out for him.
“You’re not my Sanzo,” he said by way of explanation. “I can do a nice thing for you and neither of us will have to deal with it ever again.”
Sanzo laughed softly as he exhaled. “You have a good point. So, what exactly did Ukoku have to do with Chin Yisou?”
Hakkai sat back on his heels and took a deep breath. “He needed a specimen that bridged human and youkai. Kanan was pregnant with a rape-child, and she killed herself rather than bear it.”
The two Gojyos exchanged an eloquent look.
“Burn him again,” the other Gojyo called to Hakuryuu, who chirped acknowledgment and spat another stream of flames at the corpse.
“...she may also have been chosen in the hopes that I would do exactly what I did: become a youkai by slaughtering my way to her side.”
Gojyo stood and stretched. “I gotta take a leak. Be right back.”
Nonchalantly, he sauntered over to the burning corpse. The hissing of liquid on flames floated back a moment later.
The other Gojyo also stood. “You know what? Me too.”
“You okay?” Sanzo asked Hakkai quietly enough that the other two would not hear.
“I’ll be fine. I handled it a lot worse when I initially found out.”
“Worse how?” the priest asked warily.
“Turned into a sixty-foot monster under the effects of the Minus Wave and trashed Ni’s lab. Turns out I’m powerful enough to be a Maoh in my own right, and I haven’t come to terms with that yet.”
Sanzo snorted. “Haven’t told your Sanzo or Gojyo, have you.”
“And I don’t intend to.”
“Not my problem,” Sanzo said with a shrug. “I’m going to go see what’s going on with Gat.”
The other Hakkai was sweating slightly when they joined the cluster around Gat, one hand on the big man’s shoulder and the other pressing Goku’s hand to Gat’s chest.
“Mr. Glasses is stitching chi into each part of his body,” Hazel said absently as their presence registered.
“It’s not as simple as he makes it sound,” the other Hakkai said tightly. “If it weren’t for your Goku’s chi, it would be an impossible task.”
The other Goku looked up. “Gat has a red dot like yours. He says he didn’t have it the last time he looked, but he doesn’t know how long ago that was.”
“I guess that answers that,” Hakkai murmured to the priest, who grunted. “Ah, I would like to check you over,” he said to Hazel. “Make sure I did not cause any lasting injury earlier.”
Hazel started. “Of course. Forgive my distraction; this has been a very eventful day. And...thank you for your consideration,” he said in a humbled tone.
The other Goku snorted. “He doesn’t know why you came to Togenkyo. He doesn’t have a reason to not be considerate.”
Hakkai arched one eyebrow as he knelt by the subdued foreigner, who flushed and looked away.
“I...wanted to exterminate all mon- youkai. I won’t try to defend my actions.”
“It is not my place to judge,” Hakkai replied quietly, green-glowing hands checking Hazel’s back. “Has my counterpart told you how he came to be wearing youkai power inhibitors?”
That made Hazel blink. “I didn’t even question it. But...I remember...while Vuraharu was...”
“I was born human. Grew up an orphan, angry at the world,” the other Hakkai said, most of his attention on one of Gat’s hands.
Hakkai picked up the thread. “Then I met Kanan, and for the first time, I was happy. But she was abducted by the Dark Crow clan and brought to Hyakugan Maoh to be raped and eaten. I was outraged that the villagers hadn’t even tried to defend her while I was away. They offered her up willingly because it meant the Dark Crow would leave their wives and daughters alone. I...” His hands trembled. “It’s...hard to remember that time, but I’m fairly sure I killed them all.”
Hazel gasped.
“I killed my way through the Dark Crow, trying to find where they’d taken my wife. I found her in the dungeons of Hyakugan Maoh’s keep, but by then, I’d killed too many.” Hakkai took a deep breath. “I had already started to change. I took the inhibitors the youkai lord had been wearing when I killed him, put them on, and didn’t take them off for close to four years.”
The other Hakkai looked up from Gat’s hand. “There is a legend,” he said, “that one who bathes in the blood of a thousand youkai will become a youkai. When you so blithely asserted that all youkai hate humans...” He moved slightly to lay one hand on Gat’s thigh. “Gojyo was born out of wedlock, but he was not a product of rape. His youkai father was very fond of his human mother.”
For a handful of minutes, there was only silence.
“Vuraharu doesn’t seem to have caused any damage, either in being present or in being removed,” Hakkai said, sitting back on his heels. “How do you feel?”
“Ashamed,” Hazel answered dryly. “I am going to need to re-evaluate many things, but it is quite obvious that my actions have not been as morally correct as I thought.”
Hakkai gave him a dry smile. “I’m not sure what you’ve done, but I committed genocide - not because I thought it was the correct thing to do, but because I was angry enough that I didn’t care who I was killing.”
“You’re not going to win,” Gojyo said, startling the other two by dropping into a crouch next to them, one hand casually on Hakkai’s shoulder. “Hakkai here is the master of psychological judo. Just accept that whatever you’ve done isn’t as bad as what he’s done, and move on.”
From the hanyou’s shoulder, Hakuryuu chirped agreement.
The other Gojyo sauntered up and crouched by Gat, across from the others, a scroll held in one hand. “So I guess this is yours now,” he said, handing it to the surprised man. “Oh, and your eyes are brown now, did you know that?”
That startled Hazel out of his thoughts. “They are! You’re...you’re really alive again, aren’t you?”
The other Goku brightened. “That’s great!”
“Finished,” gasped the other Hakkai, lifting his hands and sitting back. “Your chi is now properly tied to your body again. You will need to eat, and sleep, and you will tire. And,” he continued dryly, “it seems you are now the bearer of the Muten scripture. Congratulations, Priest Gat Sanzo.”
The normally-stoic man looked startled beyond words.
“You should probably report to a temple,” Sanzo said casually. “I can give you directions to the closest one.”
“I...thank you,” Gat said slowly. “I did not expect to have a fate past what I had been.”
Hazel smiled, but he looked about to cry. “Congratulations!”
“We will set out right away,” declared Gat.
Startled out of his impending tears, Hazel blurted, “We?”
Gat favored him with the ghost of a smile. “I would not have this fate without you. Now I am your fate, and you’re coming with me. From now on, I will bear responsibility for your life.”
For a long moment, Hazel gaped in shock. Then the tears broke free and he smiled through them. “I understand.”
“Are you all finished now?” demanded Sanzo’s disembodied voice.
“Yeah, yeah,” called Gojyo as he stood up. “We’re comin’ back, don’t worry.”
The Gokus grinned and high-fived each other.
“Thank you,” the other Hakkai said quietly.
Hakkai shook his head. “Thank you.”
“Kyuu,” announced Hakuryuu, launching herself from Gojyo’s shoulder to lead the way back. The other three gave awkward nods and waves to the rest of the goup and followed her through the woods in silence. No one said anything until they’d filed back through the shimmering hole in reality, which closed behind them and then disappeared with the rest of the barely-visible dimensional barrier.
“Well?” demanded Sanzo irritably.
Gojyo stretched smugly. “He’s dead. Hakyryuu set his corpse on fire and I pissed on it.”
Sanzo gave him a flatly unamused look.
“I killed him,” Hakkai said quietly. “It was clean.”
“And the Muten?” Sanzo asked.
“In good hands. I think,” Hakkai amended himself. “If the other Goku and Hakkai are to be trusted, he’s a good man.”
Sanzo snorted. “Whether he is or isn’t, it’s not our problem.”
“They didn’t fight Homura,” Goku announced. “I’m not sure why we did and they didn’t, but it made us way stronger.”
“It’s true,” Hakkai added. “Our counterparts were significantly weaker. And they haven’t reached Houtou Castle yet.”
“Not our problem,” repeated Sanzo. “Our problem is finding someplace to make camp before it gets too dark to see.”
Hakkai reached up to stroke the neck of the dragon on his shoulder. “Hakuryuu?”
“Kyuu,” she agreed, and flitted off to scout for a suitable camping spot. Goku followed her eagerly, with Sanzo trailing him, and Gojyo hung back until the other two were far enough away to not hear.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
Hakkai nodded. “Knowing that I was able to do that much to help because of how powerful I am...makes it easier to deal with the fact that I am that powerful.”
Gojyo nodded, but did not move as Hakkai began following the others.
“You sure are,” he said quietly, hands in his pockets, thankful for the loose material of his pants. “You sure are.”