Notes: More weirdness! I scared myself slightly in this chapter... stupid me!

Warnings: Angst, Sano/Saitou, death, AU

Hell Of A Long Way Home

By: Emmy

Part One

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I sat there for a while, rocking my body back and forth, holding myself for comfort. They were all dead...

Mom...

Dad...

Outa...

Uki...

The rest of my family....

Gone....

The soles of my shoes were covered in the drying blood. I continued to rock back and forth, the smell in my nostrils making me want to throw up.

But I couldn't throw up...

I had already done that...

Excessively so...

I was the only one left... Had the Trilogy killed them?

What had happened!?

My tight ball broke open and I fell into a mass of flesh and bone into the spreading, cool blood around me. I cried, my tears leaking down into the darkening red and warming it momentarily, as if it was alive again...

But it would never be alive... to think that all those blood cells could mean so much to me...

They were soulless husks of humans now, and I was alone.

My sobs continued, and I choked and wiped the blood from my hands, dragging my limbs across my clothing, I just wanted it to go away!

The red, the smell, the... everything!!

I stood up, walking out of the room, I couldn't take it anymore, I could barely move. I had to get away from here; away from the city... even if everything outside the city was a barren wasteland, it was better than being here...

I could stay out there, cry as much as I wanted and then die. Die to join them and get away from this hole in my stomach. I stumbled out the door, and down the stairs.

Everything since then was just a blur of my feet moving themselves of their own accord out into nothingness.

I found a nice little place among the dark winds, tossing the dry dirt everywhere, among the sand, to lie down. There was no grass or green along the ground; it was just a mass of brown and red, the stain from the others that the guards had slain. I huddled into that ball again and cried, letting my sobs and tremors soothe me into a sleep.

I was so tired of it, of everything in my life; it seemed so... desolate.

I remember that when I was younger I told my mom and dad that I was going to grow up and kill the Trilogy. Back then I was so fucking spirited; I don't know what happened to it...

I guess my spirit died when the letters in the mail started telling mom and dad to watch their backs.

Well, that's what they had told me. They never told me just what those letters were about... in fact they told me that they were about taxes for a while, but that traumatized look that burrowed into their faces always told me something differently.

Those letters were something different, but whenever I had tried to find one, I found it burning in the fire: the only thing that warmed our shack of a house. The letters began coming more frequently, and I should have known by then, when I heard noises outside our house like someone was knocking... waiting to get in...

It came every night... a faint tapping at our door, like it was in code.

One knock, at twelve o'clock
Two taps, waking up from your nap
Three more, we're settling the score
Open the door
Bang
Knocks no more

It was a simple rhythm that always bothered me, especially when children were singing it in the streets, as happy as can be, not knowing that they were talking about murder. That's how guards of the Trilogy acted, sending letters and then killing. It was a hunt for their enjoyment. I highly doubted that they would be coming after me; it was just a game, and they didn't care how many they killed or relation to their victims, they just killed whoever was there. They probably figured that I would be killing myself... as I was now...

I was too far gone to care... too tired to even know what was going on...

I was lying on the edge of the city, in the desolation that was the outer limits. No one survived beyond this point; you might as well have been walking off the edge of the Earth.

In coughed as I woke up in the midst of all that wind and sand, blowing into my mouth. My side was sore, as if I had been kicked. I looked up to find a figure standing in front of me.

Was it a guard!?

I wanted to scream from the feeling of the dried blood peeling off of my skin. My family's blood was trying to get away from me too... but at the moment I didn't care. I stood up and looked at the man, although I couldn't see anything. He was covered from head to toe in a deep, black garment. Heh, I hadn't seen a cape like that since I was a child, reading comic books about desert heroes with the capes and shit.

His cloak was pulled tightly around him, and I squinted as some of the flying dust blew into my sore eyes. I must have been dehydrated from all the fucking crying I had done. He gestured for me to follow him.

What? Did he need a better angle to shoot me from?

"What the hell do you want!?" I spat at him, my voice dry and cracking.

He continued to walk.

But I couldn't blame him. I couldn't even hear myself over the wind out here.

Fine, I would follow, but only until I decided to stop.

I walked, barely being able to see him in the blowing dust. It was like a snowstorm; but I hadn't seen snow in seven years. Where were we going? Had I actually made it this far out?

Everywhere I looked there was more sand.

Even if I couldn't see much, I knew that we were nowhere near the city...

If we were this far out... why was he here?

This didn't make sense to me...

I frowned and continued to walk, my feet pacing relatively quickly as I tried to catch up with the slowly vanishing figure. I stopped as he did, and shuddered. I was so cold... it was so cold in the wind.

I felt like shit all the way around.

I squinted as I saw a little shack. So that was where he was going...

He turned to the shack walked quickly into the front door.

I followed and looked around confused.

The man paused and brushed the sand off of his black cloak.

This shack was no more than five feet long and six feet wide; the ceiling couldn't have been more than six feet as well. It was a room with a rug. I felt cowed, but I was beyond caring. This shack was made of concrete, and nothing inside it was damaged. I was standing close enough to the man to feel his heavy breaths upon my skin.

Heavy?

All he had been doing was walking.

He pulled the cloak off, and under it was a gallon or two of water and food, along with bags upon bags of other little things strapped to his belt.

So he had a reason for being breathless. What the hell did he want with me?

He pulled his hood off too and I was struck by his golden eyes. He looked like some kind of wolf.

"What were you doing out there?" He asked gruffly and I shuddered.

"I was..."

I couldn't continue.

"Who are you?" Was his next question.

"Sanosuke." I stated, and he didn't press for a last name.

"You're a civilian, right?" He asked, as he knelt down to the floor.

I nodded.

"And you want sanctuary, right?"

Sanctuary? Was that a fancy way of saying death?

Either way, I nodded and he pulled on the corner of the rug, revealing a passage.

My eyes widened as he pulled the trap door, hinges squeaking loudly.

He gestured to the passage way and I froze. "Go down."

I looked into the entrance and shook my head. It was pitch black, and the smell from down there seemed like a death trap.

"Why not?" He asked, glaring at me.

"I don't know who you are! You may be trying to rape me, for all I know!" I shouted, on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

"Yes, but unless you want to die out there, I suggest you head down and find out." He replied sarcastically.

I gulped. Well, even if he were trying to kill me, it wouldn't matter. That was what I had been trying to do too, so either way I won, with nothing left to lose.

I walked over to the entrance slowly and gripped my hands along the cold steel of the bars, which bit me as I began to inch my way down the rungs. I moved down, now unable to see and I continued. I looked above me as my last light disappeared and the man's feet clicked down the rungs above me. The noise was encouraging me to hurry before he stepped on my stiff hands. My shoulders ached as I continued.

How many rungs had I passed?

The number seemed endless, and right now the only thing that I could say for certain was that the smell that lingered was getting stronger and stronger, and I couldn't see anything.

If I let go, how far would I go before hitting the ground?

Would I ever reach the bottom?

Was there a bottom, or was this ladder something that continued on only a little while longer before turning into a hole that threw me off into a depth that never ended? Would I just keep falling and falling until I died of starvation?

My thoughts were cut off as my feet fell off of the ladder.

I screamed.

I had reached the end of the rungs on the ladder, but the ground was no where in sight.

"Sanosuke, it's all right, just below you is water. I'm asking you to drop down and tread water until I get there, can you do that?" The man's voice asked.

It was pitch black! I wouldn't be able to tell which way was up to the surface if I dropped down. "I can't! I can't see anything... I haven't swum in forever!" I said, trying desperately to calm my voice.

"Trust me."

He said two, simple words, and for some reason I wanted to.

"I... fine." I finished and let go, as my body went stiff.

I dropped completely unaware of what was around me, and then heard a loud splash.

I was engulfed in an intangible surrounding of freezing water. I was submerged, my lungs crying for air as I held my breath and began to head back for the surface. I reached the surface, and then realized something that I hadn't been ready for.

A current pulling me down stream.

"Hurry!" I shouted to the man, but before I could even finish the word I heard a loud splash next to me. I shuddered as I felt myself being pulled further and further down, trying to stay above the water; the cold, tinged liquid filling my mouth. It was like I was in a dream, blind to everything but the feeling of what was going on around me.

"Sanosuke? Say something so I can swim to you," I heard his voice calmly over the currently.

"Hurry, please... I'm freezing and if your gonna rape me I would prefer you got it over with!" I shouted over mouthfuls of water, trying to think of something, anything to say.

I felt a hand clamp down on my wrist and pull me along, my body only working now to keep me afloat.

The next thing I knew was me up land, and riding on this mystery man's back. I was stiff from so many things, and my heart ached more than anything. I pulled myself closer to the warm flesh so close to me. I frowned as I noticed where my foot was.

He was still carrying all those supplies? With me on his back?

He could swim and drag me along with all those supplies?

That was fucking amazing.

His footsteps were steady and fast, and I could see through my blurred eyes a faint light in the distance.

How far underground were we?

I didn't care; I was not in the mood for thinking. I took in a deep breath, and as we neared the light, I asked him one question.

"What's your name?" It was so limp it barely came out as a question, more like an incoherent thought that mistakenly pushed through my lips.

"Hajime."

"Hm, do you have a last name?"

"Do you?"

"Yeah, but I want to forget it..."

"I know the feeling. My name is Hajime Saitou."

I frowned. Why did that sound so familiar? I pulled closer, muttering to myself again, "I'm cold..."

"When we arrive I'll get you some dry clothes."

Another few footsteps and moments.

"Where are we going 'Jime?" I asked limply.

"The Underground."

"I coulda told ya that... where underground?"

"The Underground." He answered again, stiffly.

Fine, be a stubborn asshole.

I didn't push it any further, but it wasn't much longer until the tunnel of darkness ended, and everything I was lit up. I closed my eyes and slipped into sleep. All I wanted right then was to escape one last time. I didn't know what awaited me when I woke up, but it would be there, come what may.

It's not like it really mattered anymore.

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End of part one