Disclaimer – I do not own or profit from Saiyuki. Pity me. ...Heh.

Rated M for darkness, slash/yaoi, and more angst than you can shake a stick at. (Which could be any amount, as you can't shake sticks at incorporeal things like angst, but I assure you, there's still a lot of it in here.) Also? Wasn't kidding about the darkness thing. It abounds. Don't say you weren't warned. 'Cause you just were.

Contains some spoilers for the... what Ni does to Kougaiji in the manga, the storyline that gets resolved in volumes two & three of Reload. (It's also in the anime for Reload, but I can't recall just where offhand.) If you have no idea what I'm talking about, and moreover you don't want to know, then you may want to skip reading this. Just for your own good.

Though I should further warn – I take liberties with the actual plotline. That's kinda how this story of mine formed.

Though additional blame (most of it, in fact) belongs with darthelwig, for throwing out the comment that led to this horrible plotbunny. When the inevitable flames come, I'm using them to burn your eyelashes off, sis. (I kid, I kid! Heh.)

Anyway, enough of my rambling. Enjoy. Peace, all.

OxOxO

Fall of Shadows

Prologue - The End Begins

by Ghost Helwig

OxOxO

"We can't do this, Kou. It's insane."

A glance from lucid but deadened purple eyes silenced Dokugakuji quite effectively. Kougaiji had changed, since he'd been left in Ni's dubious 'care' (my fault mine only mine), changed in a myriad amount of ways – ways that pleased Dokugakuji not at all. Kougaiji was changed, and everything he said and did was different now, unrecognizable-

Like this, for instance.

They were walking into the makeshift tent some of Kougaiji's subordinates had set up amid the trees when Kougaiji turned to him and spoke, surprising him – he'd thought their brief pseudo-conversation over.

"Remember," Kougaiji said tersely, "we do whatever Lady Gyokumen Koushu commands."

We do? Dokugakuji thought, but he knew better than to say it aloud.

Kougaiji really was different.

They entered the tent, him holding the flap open for a gruff Kougaiji before entering himself and letting it fall shut behind him, putting all his pressing thoughts out of his head.

The sight before him helped with that.

The first thing he saw, once his eyes adjusted to the dim, flickering light of the two kerosene lamps spaced throughout the tent, was gold. Light glimmered, sparkled, caught in that gold, made a play of shadows and light amid the inky darkness trying to overtake the tent.

Even beaten and bound and blood-spattered, even in the half-dark of this cold place, Genjyo Sanzo was beautiful.

Which (as sick as it probably meant he was for thinking such a thing at such a time) made this a hell of a lot easier.

Kougaiji knelt by Sanzo's head, and for a moment Dokugakuji thought it looked like he was going to do something kind, something like him, but instead, Kougaiji brutally slapped Sanzo awake.

If Sanzo awoke somewhat less than pleased, it was completely understandable.

"This is ridiculous," he growled low in his throat, voice even more gritty than usual from grogginess, pain – and possibly a drug (or two) in his system. Dokugakuji wouldn't put anything past Ni-

And it was his puppet Kougaiji had really become.

When no one answered him, Sanzo snarled, "let. Me. Go."

Emotionlessly, Kougaiji slapped him again, making Sanzo's head snap to the side, blond hair flying, glittering in the dim light. Dokugakuji felt suddenly sick.

"I do as my Lady commands," Kougaiji said tonelessly.

And who do I obey, Kou? Her? You? Is that why I'm doing this?

Dokugakuji resisted the urge to put his head in his hands; he was as much a party to this as Kougaiji was. He would not allow himself to look away.

Am I doing this for you?

As Kougaiji began methodically stripping the bound Sanzo, Dokugakuji gulped back the bile rising in his throat.

Or is that just my excuse?

--End Prologue--