Disclaimer: The foundation was not mine, but from it I built my palace.
Author's Note: Yes, people. It's another fic; I'm sorry, I HAD to. I got home from watching the episode where Miroku proposes and I just had to write this. I went into a frenzy and drew all these picture for it. I was making myself sick with all the details I put into Sango's kimonos. Seriously. I thought I would die. And then, it turned out that the best picture was the one of her mother! Ah!
Ah well, you didn't need to know that.
Yes, it is another fic with snow in the title. I happen to like snow, people. I was born during the worst blizzard of the year. I'm a winter baby. Thus, snow.
Right, well, that's it for the notes.
Translations: Yes, this story will have Japanese in it. I will, however, include translations and pronunciations. For those of you who are interested, I will add some cultural notes as well, as I have been studying Japanese culture for a VERY long time.
Chichiue- (chi-chi-weh) honorific term for one's father
Geisha- (gee-shah) Contrary to popular belief, geisha were, are not, prostitutes. They are entertainers, and were, up until the Meiji Era, mostly played by men. They were not men in drag, simply men trying to make a living, as it was thought improper for women to do previous to Meiji. To further prove my point, if a geisha lost her virginity, she would have to resign. It is still that way today.
Hime- (hih-may) princess
Houshi- (hoh- shee) Buddhist monk
Katana- A Japanese long sword
Oji- (oh- jee) prince
Sake- (sah- kay) rice wine [A little culture note: Japanese people put a lot of emphasis on the tast of their sake. It is said that when you are happy or things are going your way, your sake tastes good. If something is wrong with you (it's always you that has the problem), then your sake will taste bad. Personally, my sake always tastes bad, so I gotta be the most messed-up person in the world]
-sama- (sah-ma) an honorific that confers great respect
-san- (sah-n) a common honorific, equivalent to Mr., Ms., Miss, Mrs., etc.
Shoji- (shoh- jee) sliding doors
Wakizashi- (wah- kee- zah- shee) A short, light sword used mostly for defense by samurai. If you need an image, it is the sword Sango carries at her belt in the anime and manga.
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-- Blood Upon Snow --
By Ichimu
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Chapter 1, The Shadow's Toll
Screams; blood-curdling, high-pitched wails that pounded like the blood in Sango's ears.
"Come, come, Sango hime," cried the distraught servant tugging at her kimono, trying to keep her eyes down for the sake of courtesy. "We must hurry! We must get you out of here!" The urgency in her voice caused it to crack.
Fire. There was fire that spat and crackled and ate away at everything Sango knew. There were screams that stole her breath and there was fire that destroyed her home.
"This way, hime!" She turned down a corridor. "We must go swift and quiet- like shadows," the servant urged.
Yes, there were shadows too. They entered with the fire, dancing in the blazes' wake. They wielded shining blades that tore souls from their owners and brought the screaming. There were many shadows. The shadows were that which caused her heart to clench with fear.
"Through here, this way." Sango followed her young servant, winding, twisting. They sped past dark rooms were screams latched out at Sango's heart and enticed her to enter. They crept past rooms where the shadows congregated. Finally, they stopped at one door with only one shadow and no screams.
"Chichiue!" Sango breathed. Her voice was scratchy from the heat and length of the retreat. She reached out and her servant reluctantly handed over her wakizashi. The metal that normally felt so light in her hands had her carrying the weight of the entire world tonight. Sango accepted it and with shaking hands, slid open the shoji.
The huge shadow within looked up as Sango entered. His blade was suspended just inches from the man's chest. The shadow's eyes were like ice. They were like ice, but they burned with the fires of hell as they bore into her dark orbs. "Sango-sama" it hissed with a snake-like voice.
Sango's blood froze and her body would not move. The thing, the shadow that stood over her father knew her name. Her father looked up at her, his usually merry black eyes dull with accepted defeat. "Sango-san, what are you doing here?" he asked, blood coming forth from his mouth as he spoke. It trailed down his bearded chin to drip into the pool of crimson life in which he lay sprawled out across the floor.
With a scoff, the shadow flicked his sword. Sango gasped as she felt the true force of the blow brush past her, but her fear kept her feet supplanted. A strangled noise came from behind Sango. She did not turn as her young servant fell to the ground, dead. A pale arm extended across the hardwood floor before Sango's ornate slippers, followed quickly by trails of a dense, red liquid. Sango's blood pounded harder and her throat closed, smothering the scream that she wanted to let free.
"Sango-san, run," her father pleaded.
"Chichiue?" Sango said stupidly as the shadow raised his blade into the air. Every nerve in her body froze over as the shining solid passed through her father's heart, halting his existence in the blink of an eye. Sango's eyes went wide. "Chichiue!" But she was already running. Her body carried her on instinct through the maze of hallways that made up the castle.
Fire cackled in cheerful irony. The corner of her kimono was ablaze, but she was so close to the exit. She did not halt. Sango could feel the icy breath of her pursuer upon her neck and her hair stood on end.
"Sango-sama!"
She whirled around and saw her fiancé, his bloodied katana clutched firmly in his hands. Several shadows lay in a heap at his feet. "Kyoden-sama!" she gasped. 'Don't go,' she begged. Like her servant and her father, Kyoden would die. He would fall to the shadow. But her words would not come forth from her throat.
Kyoden ran past Sango and toward the great mass that stalked her. The shadow responded with his own charge. As the shadow met him, sparks flew from their blades. Kyoden jumped away with a confident smirk upon his face.
His smile vanished as the shadow moved with impossible speed and cast his katana straight through Kyoden's left shoulder. The shadow withdrew the blade and leapt away. With a ragged gasp, Kyoden clutched the wound with his right hand- which still held his katana- and collapsed to his knees. A thin trickle of blood came from his mouth.
"Rise, oji," sneered the shadow. "Rise to meet your death as a prince should." He lifted his katana to his face. A pink tongue emerged from his darkened mass and licked the blood from the blade. He made a small sound of pleasure and then added, "My katana likes the taste of your royal blood. Now, rise!"
"No!" Sango choked. She tried to run to Kyoden, but her fiancé raised his right hand, soaked in the vital fluid that had come from his shoulder, to stop her. She froze in her steps and watched with tears in her eyes as Kyoden lifted himself onto his feet.
"There's a good prince," mocked the shadow.
Kyoden rushed forward and only just managed to duck as the shadow whipped his katana towards his head. The shadow's blade instead split the wall it drove through. Kyoden leapt at his opportunity, but the wound he already suffered slowed him just a fraction of a second. And that fraction was all the shadow needed to seal the prince's doom; the shadow ripped his blade from the wall and drove it into Kyoden's right side. As Kyoden's shock froze him, his katana still suspended in the position he had taken for his attack, the shadow pulled the blade out by tearing through Kyoden's whole right side.
This time, Kyoden fell before Sango's feet, his eyes wide with disbelief at the shadow's infinite speed.
It pained Sango when she gasped, for her chest already shook with sobs. She covered he mouth with her hands and gazed upon her dying fiancé, unable to do a thing. Here, before her, her only love was dying, and she could do nothing to comfort him. She was frozen, and she was worthless.
"Sango-sama" Kyoden said roughly, looking up at his young bride-to-be. He extended a hand in front of him, reaching for her. But she was far too distant. A falling sensation over took him. And his eyelids fluttered, almost closed, and a single tear began its journey down his cheek. Everything suddenly seemed so surreal and far-off. He was losing his grip on reality, plunging into a world of blackness.
'No,' he thought suddenly. 'I don't want to die!' His tear-filled eyes flew open and he rose up onto his knees. The shadow hovered above him, katana poised to deliver the final, fatal blow. Kyoden swung his katana around his body in one powerful and rapid movement.
The shadow barked as the sword tore a thin, shallow cut across his neck. He swore fluently and then thrust his blade through Kyoden's unguarded chest. Sango screamed a long, high-pitched wail of despair. The shadow sneered and twisted the blade once before drawing the stained metal from Kyoden's still heart.
Sango cried out as Kyoden hit the floor, the sound of his impact like the dropping of a bomb. She covered her leaking eyes with her hands and ran. They were all dead: her servants, Chichiue, Kyoden and most likely her brother Kohaku. Tears ran down her burning cheeks. As the cold fingers of grief wrapped around her heart, her blood roared in her eardrums. So loud was the pounding that she did not even hear the ceiling collapse behind her.
Sango whirled around as the string of fear that had bound her to the shadow was cut. In place of the monster was a pile of scorching wood. Not sure whether to thank the gods that she had been sparred or to curse them for stealing her everything, Sango ran through the doors and out into the blizzard.
Blood. There was so much blood. Everywhere, the shadows feasted like crows upon the corpses of both shadows and men that littered the ground. It was a grotesque display that lacked any essence of the word civility, or even that of fairness. Sango stood in numb silence as she surveyed what had been the quiet gardens of her home, but was now home to the gruesome scene she watched. Wind beat against her back, accompanied by multitudes of snowflakes, but the cold she felt was inside. Within, her very heart was freezing over.
She was blind to all but terror, and her eyes rested on the crimson landscape that stretched before her. Seeing the blood of so many warriors, so many good people upon the snow, Sango delved into a deep, dark part of her soul. There lay the terrible realization: everything pure could be abolished so easily.
Sango walked away from the burning castle where she had grown up. Everyone would think she was dead. She would like that. It would give her a chance to get her revenge. "Revenge," Sango tried the word on her tongue. It sounded sweet, but seemingly unattainable. She would only freeze up again, like she had when her father had needed her most.
She took hold of the first sharp thing her eyes connected with. It was a small dagger. Sango raised the dagger and ripped a wound in her side, in the same place where Kyoden had been wounded. She bit back a scream. She had never been injured so badly in her life, and never knew a pain so unendurable. She staggered against the weight of agony and desperately attempted to suck air into her lungs. "I swear," she gasped, clutching the wound. "I swear by the pain in my side, I will never freeze up again. "No longer able to sustain herself, she fell to her knees and dropped the dagger.
Amongst the dead, Sango fell asleep, her blood pouring out onto the snow.
---
Sango awoke as a strand of hair was lifted from her sweat-soaked forehead. Slowly, she opened her eyes and found that it was night. Whether or not it was the same night that had destroyed her life, she could not be sure. Nor was she concerned with the matter at the moment. What she was concerned with was who had awoken her.
She looked around and saw, to her amazement, a horse. In fact, it was one of her family's horses. It had been bridled and saddled, so Sango suspected that it must have been brought into combat. The rider, whose boot still hung in the stirrup, must have fallen to the endless waves of shadows. The knees of the horse's forelegs bore mild cuts, but the bleeding had already stopped and the injury was of no real consequence.
Sango drew herself onto her hands and knees, cringing and almost falling back as her side sent pain through her body and halted her breath. She looked at the wound with a critical eye and lowered her obi to cover it. Then, she ordered the horse to crouch down onto the snow. The horse, well trained, obliged.
Then, with gradual progress, Sango began to heave herself into the saddle. Her breaths were brief and quick, and her pain seemed insufferable, but finally she was in the saddle. Sango gingerly tapped the horse's flanks, and she was off, galloping wildly through the blizzard.
---
The sake splashed cheerily as flowed into Miroku's waiting cup. He nodded to the young woman who had poured it for him to signal that that was enough. The point, after all, was to get the girls drunk, not him. They giggled, as if guessing his thoughts.
The geisha at his right was about seventeen. Her eyes were youthful, but her frame was not. Miroku had to admire the fullness of her more important areas at such a young age. Her face was white as snow and her lips were blood red. Her hair was decorated with clips and beads and perfumes. The geisha at his left was older, maybe nineteen. She was similarly decorated, only herimportant areas were much more filled-out. She was playing the lute.
"Houshi-sama," the younger geisha muttered, playfully flicking a strand of hair away from his face. "Don't you think you should-"
But before Miroku could find out what he should do, the shoji was thrust open. A young man scrambled into the room and fell onto the ground at Miroku's feet. He shook and then bowed to Miroku. The two geisha backed away from Miroku as they saw the gesture.
"Ah, Fumihiko," complained Miroku, "You're blowing my cover." He cast a glance in the direction of the older geisha, but both of them lowered themselves into bows as well. 'Damn,' Miroku thought. 'Now I'll never get them drunk enough.'
"My apologies, Miroku oji," the servant Fumihiko said, lowering his head even more. "But there is an important message that your father bid I tell you immediately." The man shook violently as the words left his lip.
"A message?" Miroku said nonchalantly. He sat back and sipped his sake. "And what might that message be?" 'Bitter,' he thought, looking at the sake. 'My sake tastes bitter tonight. But in such good company as thisWhy does it taste like death?'
Fumihiko now placed both hands on the tatami and put his forehead against the mats. "Your elder brother, Kyoden oji, has-he has-"
"He has what?" Miroku asked, drawing himself onto his hands and knees. Anxiety was bubbling up in his stomach. Something was wrong. He had never seen Fumihiko so distraught in his life. "What has Kyoden done?"
A single tear hit the tatami. "Died. Kyoden oji has died."
The two geisha behind Miroku gasped, but Miroku could not even show that much reaction. It felt like he had just been kicked in the stomach. 'Dead? Kyoden isdead? Impossible! He-he couldn't!' Miroku sat back on the pillows, his body falling limp against their feathery mass. "Where? How?" he said, keeping his voice level despite hishis what? Fear? No, that wasn't it. Pain? Not quite. His emptiness? That was it: his sudden and complete emptiness.
"He was staying at the home of Kawate Thoki with his fiancée, Kawate Sango. But their home was attacked. Kyoden died in the fighting," reported Fumihiko.
"And what of his fiancée, Sango?" asked Miroku, still in disbelief at his brother'smisfortune? Why was he at such a loss for words when he needed them most?
"She too died."
Miroku couldn't take it anymore. Sure, he and Kyoden hadn't always gotten along- in fact, Miroku had made it his life's goal to become better than his older brother- but they were brothers. Kyoden had always been better at everything. He was better at getting women, he was better at fighting, he was better at talking to people, he was a better hunter, but most of all, he was a better son to their ailing father. Miroku stood up and walked past Fumihiko to the door.
"Where are you going, Miroku oji?"
"Away," said Miroku. He stepped through the shoji and was gone.
- Ichimu Have a heart and please review!
