Chapter 22 - Alive

Alive is Saiyuki's twenty-second chapter.

Summary
Three years ago at Hyakugan Maoh' s headquarters: Slashed by Chin Yisou's blade, Cho Gonou lay on the floor bleeding. Chin Yisou, taking the opportunity to test the legend that one who bathes in the blood of a thousand yokai will become a yokai, cut his own wrist and bled on Gonou. As Gonou began to writhe and scream, Chin Yisou laughed, mocking Gonou for becoming a yokai just like the one who defiled his sister. Wielding his new yokai claws, Gonou stood and cut Chin Yisou down.

Back in the present day, Hakkai chokes Sanzo as Chin Yisou reminds him of the past. He tells Hakkai that after Hakkai had cut him open, he had planted a mahjong tile in the wound just before he died, turning his own body into a shikigami so that he could find Gonou again and torment him.

Sanzo goes limp beneath Hakkai's hands. Hakkai puts his hands to his own head and wails. Voices can be heard coming through the trees as Gojyo and Goku approach. Chin Yisou takes a stunned Hakkai's hand, telling him that it is now time for him to lose everything. Goku and Gojyo appear on scene and stop short when they see Sanzo lying on the ground. Hakkai tells them that he killed Sanzo and then hits Goku in the head, knocking him down. Chin Yisou tells them that Hakkai is now his puppet. Hakkai prepares to throw a chi blast at Goku. As Gojyo screams for him not to do it, Hakkai suddenly turns and blasts Chin Yisou instead. Shocked, Chin Yisou asks how Hakkai is still right in the head when he should be under his control. Sanzo comes up behind Chin Yisou and shoots him through the head. As Goku, Gojyo, and Chin Yisou, with a bullet hole through his head but still standing, realize that Sanzo and Hakkai were just putting on an act, Sanzo says that Hakkai would rather die than strangle him. In explanation for why he did not fall under Chin Yisou's spell, Hakkai tells him that his heart is not big enough for anyone to sneak into its crevices.

As Hakkai and Chin Yisou face off in a battle to the death, Hakkai rushes at Chin Yisou and thrusts his hand through his chest using chi power. As his fist thrusts out through Chin Yisou's back, in his hand he holds the mahjong tile that Chin Yisou had placed inside himself. He tells Chin Yisou that his name is now Cho Hakkai, and crushes the tile. As Chin Yisou crumbles and decays, Hakkai tells him that no matter how red his hands get, he can always wash off the blood, and that is how he now lives his life. Declaring their mutual hatred for each other, Chin Yisou dies.

Later that day, Gojyo scribbles on Goku's leg cast as the Sanzo-ikkou rest. Gojyo and Hakkai then go to sit on Jeep's hood and talk. Hakkai says Chin Yisou was like his own ghost or his other self. Gojyo responds by telling him that the reason why he saved him three years ago was because it looked like he was begging to be killed. He goes on to say that it does not look like Hakkai is ready to die, now. Hakkai replies that he wishes his lifeline were longer, and holds his hand out to gaze at his palm. In his thoughts he addresses Kanan, telling her that he would like to try living for himself. Goku comes up behind him and draws a longer lifeline on his hand with black marker. As Hakkai wonders how he will remove the permanent ink, Gojyo says he cannot, but that there is nothing wrong with that. Hakkai agrees.

Meanwhile, up in the heavens, Kanzeon Bosatsu tells Jiroushin that it is the duty of the gods to bear witness to those who were born to live. "Go forward. Even if your path is paved with corpses."