"Tenpou? You okay?"

Again, he didn't hear it.

Suddenly something roared in his ears: wild, vicious and unrestrained. Tenpou tried to stagger back, but found that he couldn't move. His hand was paralyzed, locked palm to palm with that of his mirror image which seemed to oscillate before him...from youkai to that other form. From gentle to malicious, delirous and ripping at the seams.

He felt pain rushing through his abdomen like a claw being dug into him, felt the rain when he was nowhere near water. It drove him half mad and he cried out, tried to, but no sound emerged from his throat. Rain, hisses, and growls. Grim innocence and the smell of blood. Pouring rain and pouring blood. He hated it and hungered for it, pounding rain and blood pounding through his ears. Then...

Soft rain, a soft bed, and a voice. "Did you want to die?"

I don't want to die...it was his last thought.

The mirror shattered. Now a broken piece of nothing with a bullet hole.

Five-hundred years later, on a road heading west...

The jeep screeched to a halt, its driver leaning forward over the wheel, his skin growing pale and his eyes dimming with extreme fatigue.

"Oi, Hakkai!" Sanzo's harsh tone woke him up.

"Sorry...Sanzo." Hakkai apologized sheepishly. "I guess I'm just tired, that's all...but I'm fine now. Really. The next town shouldn't be more than ten min-"

"Just shut up and drive. The faster we get there, the better." He paused, then added in a softer tone, "Sleep later, not now. I'm not in the mood to be road kill."

"I understand." And so Hakkai continued driving.