It wasn't fair.

There they were, minding their own business, and all of a sudden another fucking group of youkai bursts out of the underbrush and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose. First thing in the fucking morning, too. Gojyo had only been halfway through his first cigarette of the day when he'd been forced to drop it to the ground, summoning his weapon to his hand in time to keep one of the fucking bastards from parting his stylishly long hair with a disgustingly rusty, jagged-edged sword. It didn't take long for the others to chip in, though. All of them were used to this shit by now. Even as he concentrated on taking out another couple of rampaging fuck-ups, he could see the blur that was Goku, meting out an early morning ass-whipping, and the sharp retorts of Sanzo's gun and Hakkai's chi were impossible to ignore in the still morning air.

They were doing great, too. The idiots were falling like bowling pins. The four of them had been fighting with one another for long enough that they'd finally figured out how to move so that no one was in someone else's way. How to predict who would go after what target. They finally trusted one another enough to take for granted the fact that they'd be covered from sneak attacks when they were preoccupied.

The last of the youkai fell, and they all stood there in silence for a moment, just waiting to see if there was another wave waiting in the wings. Nothing else stirred, though…nothing. And after a long moment, Sanzo tucked his gun back into one of the wide sleeves of his robe and muttered something surly about dumbasses making too much fucking noise first thing in the morning. Goku complained loudly about missing breakfast, Hakkai laughed that little, preoccupied laugh that he used to fill silence and gave some kind of platitude to the kid about making something they could eat in the jeep, and Gojyo banished his shakujou back to wherever it went when he didn't need it, rummaging around for his lighter and a fresh cigarette to get the rest of his fix.

Too bad the one thing they still weren't good with was surprise attacks.

Gojyo didn't even manage to light his cigarette. The bastard leapt out of a fucking tree, screaming, and pouncing right on top of him, all manic smile with a crazy light in his eyes. Gojyo didn't even manage to kick him off in time to keep the bastard from sinking some kind of knife blade deep into his skin, but he was on his feet by the time Sanzo took the fucker out with a shot to the head, on his knees by the time he heard the somehow tinny sound of Hakkai's panicked cry of his name. On his side in time to see the world blur into a kind of hazy mix of colors and shapes as his eyes focused on the too-white tube of his lost cigarette instead of anything he wanted to look at before everything went dark.

It just wasn't fair.