Jiyuu
Freedom
Wind whipping through my mahogany hair, I remembered what InuYasha had said at our last meeting.
We'll take your heart back from Naraku while we're at it.
Then as if the sun itself was shining rays of hope at me as it rose above the horizon, he shouted You better not die before that happens!
Squinting my scarlet eyes a little at the brilliance of the rising star, I knew what I had to do.
I'll run for my life.
Azure streaks in the sky seemed to grow as if agreeing with my epiphany.
I'll go as far as I have to!
And so I did... I traveled beyond the tree canopy for the first time in my short life.
I had been sitting on my snow-white feather for a good few moments. I had lost track of the amount of hills I crossed over.
I'm free... I'm finally free!
Turning my gaze back up to where I was meant to fly, I gasped.
A familiar floating magenta barrier hovered directly in front of me. Inside was a man bared in armor of teeth, green tentacles, indigo, blue, yellow and white.
Naraku.
I flew hesitantly in his sight, but far enough to escape if he attacked. I was scared. No... terrified of what this half-breed could do, but those feelings show that he's in change around here, and I will not allow him to think that I'll just submit my death after he's done with his little pawn.
"Kagura," He spoke, slight laziness in the way he said my name.
Something... good? Knowing him, it was probably my hope going out the window.
"It appears that Hakudoshi has died."
I remember the haunting sight of Hakudoshi's white head being sucked into the monk's Wind Tunnel. The look of not fear, but complete and utter outrage burning in his pupil-less pale pink eyes.
Gritting my teeth, I bite back a snide remark.
Tch, you're probably the one who set it up.
"What a fool Hakudoshi was," He continues, wind not daring to touch His unruly curly shit-colored hair. "Seems he intended to overthrow me."
He stops abruptly, as if anticipating my next move.
"Kagura," He says again, his white-red eyes hinting at something I don't know about.
What is he planning?
"I shall free you."
I shall free you.
The four words I have been dying to hear have just been spoken by the person I've been dying to hear it from.
I noticed the amiss tone of voice he used, very smooth. But, I failed to care. I was too caught up in the moment.
I was out in the open and He knew it.
"You'll free me... you say?" I quipped hoarsely. This was just too good to be true.
"You wish to be liberated from me, right?" He inquired.
I don't answer. I know He knows.
"That is why you disobeyed my orders, allowed Goryomaru to escape and joined Hakudoshi's side."
How...?
I stifle a twisted laugh and reply,"If you were aware of everything I was doing-"
He raises his hand, succeeding in catching my attention.
A soft sound was heard and a glowing, pulsing mass of beautiful, beautiful flesh was right there. In His hand.
"My heart," I choke out incredulously.
"That's right." He responded with disgust. I ignored it, silently gazing at my glowing heart. "If I return this to your body, you will no longer be under anyone's control." He looked up. "Not even mine. You will be free."
Suddenly, in a blur of iridesent maroon, it was gone. My heart was gone.
A pulse sounded through me.
I-it's back-
And stopped when three tan tentacles shot me through the chest, splattering my white and purple robes with thick blood. My thick blood.
My whole life flashed before my eyes as I thought about me losing my breath, just as I finally got it. I was going to be the wind. That was all I wished for. I didn't feel the pain until a sharp spasm shook me, and I knew I was still alive, but hardly breathing.
"Don't worry," Naraku mocked me. "I avoided your precious heart."
Anger boiled up from my core, suppressing my intense pain.
"Naraku." I hissed. My face contorting with anger even when I was bleeding through my teeth. I hated him. I despised him.
"B-Bastard!" I yelled as blood continued to pool in my mouth. I whipped my fan out and through a Wind Blade at him and his STUPID FUCKING barrier.
He pulled his appendages out from the holes he made in my back.
I covered my wound with my already-stained sleeve of my dancer's kimono, and weakly flew away, Naraku's words haunting the breeze.
"Now go...wherever you wish."
"D-Damn." I muttered as the searing chemical continued to eat away at my veins. "He pumped a full load of miasma into me!"
"Enjoy what little time you have left to live. Of course you will only feel pain and despair. Kagura... This is the freedom you sought." -Naraku
I could not travel any further, the pain becoming too unbearable to keep moving.
I landed directly in a meadow of silken white daisies, between a valley in the nearest hills.
Standing up shakily, I pressed a hand firmly to my heart. My heart that is now in MY chest.
"I-I can recover from this wound in day... " I trailed off, knowing my words might not be true.
I saw a sunlit patch of flowers in the center of everything and felt the need to sit there.
Following my desires for the first time, I walked, listening to a strange sound that came from my ribs.
My heart is beating... I realized.
I lifted my face only to be met with tumbling clouds and a promising clear sky.
I can go wherever I want.
Leaves blurred my vision, the clouds smearing into the green and baby blue. An unbelievable feeling of contentment and complete-ness rose up into my heart.
I'm free...
Sesshomaru has a heated battle with Goryomaru not only for himself, but also for the one he's come to care about...
Having stumbled around the glade for more than enough time, I collapsed in the middle of nowhere, right onto my world had never seems so lonely and scarring.
D-Damn. A gentle wind caressed my face, and I knew then and there that this horrible amount of pain will soon be gone.
My body won't do what I want it to.
My gaze turns down and sting slightly, but I had made a vow to myself: never shed tears. I don't. And won't cry over something so common.
I felt hot liquid roll down my stomach. Blood.
The wounds reopened. I thought absent-mindedly.
I don't have enough power left to heal it.
A summer breeze blew by, setting adrift to a few petals stained with blood. Mine...
They just kept flying higher and higher flowing with the wind. The wind I was supposed to be... but never will.
Sesshomaru, the inferior one in battle, was about to strike as he catches Naraku's scent on a dark-painted daisy petal, but knows that this blood is not Naraku's.
He sees a the lone petal drift by, quiet and ignorant of the battle going on. But the petal's carry Kagura's last wish: the wish to see the man she's come to admire, maybe even love, one last time. The man who she knows will revenge her death, even if he says it's not for her, they both know it is.
"This scent..." He stated.
"Hmm? Did the stupid woman die?" Goryomaru asked to no one in particular.
All of Sesshomaru's attention was now focused on the demon in turtle armor. Eyes narrowed, as if daring to insult Kagura's death.
"After betraying Naraku and betraying me for some trivial thing called freedom, she ended up dying a pathetic death." Goryomaru said, answering Sesshomaru's unspoken question. The appendages holding Sesshomaru limb by limb were twiching grotesquely.
"And dying in vain at that." Goryomaru finished, smirking.
Sesshomaru's eyes widened as he felt Tenseiga pound against his belt.
"Silence," He warned in a threatening voice. Shining a quick shade of green, he cut away the tentacles holding him back and slashed Tokijin down right on Goryomaru's spiked shoulder blade, breaking the shell and piercing the armor.
"I-Impossible!" Goryomaru cried. "My shell!" Emerald continued to shine through the cut, getting stronger with each passing second and also with each each pasing moment Tokijin cracked even more.
Jaken beamed behind a random rock off in some corner. "I would expect no less from Lord Sesshomaru!" He was practically shedding sparkles. But no one cares about him.
"A little more, just a little more!" Rin called from beside Jaken. Rin's different, because Rin is cute and Jaken is not.
Let's get back to the action.
Bright emerald aura spilled from Goryomaru's body, signifying his armor's breaking point.
"The demonic energy I absorbed!" Goryomaru shouted, appalled. He tried to move, but couldn't. The sword rendered him immobile.
"This Sesshomaru's demonic energy cannot be contained in your pitiful vessel!" Sesshomaru said over the sound of rushing energy. "Take this!"
Crystal blue melded off the surface of Tokijin, forming a crystal blue dragon the color of the carribbean sea.
"Azure Dragon Wave!" The small but demonic packed dragon bared it's fangs and dived into the opened wound in Goryomaru's shoulder, crushing even more spikes and causing Goryomaru to draw back a bit from the shock.
He glanced at the pierced armor.
No! The Shikon Shard is...
CLING!
Tokijin had crumbled and broke into pieces.
"T-Tokijin!" Jaken. He was just about as confused as everyone.
"It snapped!" Rin gasped, blinking her chocolate eyes.
Silver fragments scattered around Sesshomaru, only slightly darker than his own hair. Narrowing his golden eyes, so as not to get the chips in, he jumped and landed a few feet away from Goryomaru.
"Why, you," Goryomaru growled. A cloudy purple materialized around his emerald-bleeding self. "Next time will be different!" He warned before disappearing into the surroundings, in burst of a tornado-like miasma.
"Hmph." Sesshomaru sneered, throwing aside the now useless Tokijin.
It clattered as it's metal made contact with the hard stone.
"Sesshomaru-Sama!" Rin looked Sesshomaru over.
"I'm glad you're safe!" Jaken added.
Sesshomaru was quiet. He had never forgot about Kagura once during the battle. All that's left to do is find her.
He set off, into the air.
"Ah, Sesshomaru-Sama!" Jaken called in vain.
"You're going to leave you're sword behind?" Rin questioned as Sesshomaru was up off the ground.
"This Sesshomaru feels no attachment to a broken sword. I need only find a replacement." And then he disappeared from sight, mokomoko billowing close behind.
"Where is Lord Sesshomaru going?" Questioned the unimportant Jaken.
Rin was focused on more important things. Like the small cherry petal that remained on the shattered sword...
"A petal?"
"I'm sure of it!" InuYasha's gruff voice was heard. "It's the scent if Kagura's blood!"
He was carrying the school-uniform covered Kagome, clad in his usual Fire-Rat Robe.
"Naraku may have learned of her betrayal!" Sango realised. She herself traveled on a transformed Kirara, in her own Slayer Suit, with the monk's staff positioned as a bar to prevent her from falling.
"Let us hurry!" Miroku ushered in his own purple monk-ness. Shippo traveled on his shoulder.
We should have forced her to stay with us, Kagome thought regretfully. We shouldn't have let Kagura be alone!
A dark cloud hung over my body, it's vapors killing everything that breathed in it's potency. The wound has gotten deeper and now the whole front of my chest was covered in my pouring blood that just won't seem to stop.
The pain grew on me within minutes, it was like it was always there from the start.
Birds chirp in the nearby trees.
My gaze travels and takes in the lush scenery.
It's quiet... Nobody's around...
My eyes turn back into my lap. Blood had created a small colored cushion around my seat of daisies.
Does it end here? A wave of heated wind rushes out of me and rustles the flowers, grass and trees all in one big gust of air.
All by myself... This is the freedom I sought...
Footsteps startle me out of my thoughts. Beaded green earrings roll together as I look up at the sight of black boots. Traveling higher, I saw white hakama, a yellow belt, armor, red-flowers, long silver hair, and finally- golden eyes.
"Sesshomaru." I stutter, surprised I saw him in this moment of truth.
His face looked unusually serene and untroubled and a glint in his somewhat warm molten orbs that suggested he was actually caring. I missed that he cared, but I noticed the peaceful face he had on.
"I followed the scent of blood and miasma," he said indifferently. The one person I ever looked up to ran into me while looking for his enemy.
I laughed humorlessly and buried my head down. "I see. You were expecting to find Naraku." Trying to escape from his smoldering eyes even more, I close my crimson ones before reopening them. "Are you disappointed that I'm not Naraku?" I ask, not really caring if he was or wasn't. I already knew his answer.
Sesshomaru regarded the question quickly and spoke without hesitation. A foreign emotion gleamed in his amber orbs."I knew it was you."
I gasp, an unusual thing for me. My hero went out of his way to see me in my dying moment.
A cool breeze ruffled his long tame hair and my own.
"I... see..." I choke out, overcome with emotion. I purse my red lips.
So you came... knowing it was me...
Sesshomaru put his hand on the navy hilt of Tenseiga, in an attempt to save Kagura.
Smoke clotted her frame, the miasma consuming her torso.
Even Tenseiga cannot save her...
Wind blew petals upwards and I knew that this was my way of obtaining freedom. Through death.
"Are you leaving?" Came Sesshomaru's velvet voice.
Feeling the wind rush through me, the essence of who I really was, was calling me, guiding me to the freedom I've always wanted. To become one with the wind.
"Yeah, It's enough." I whispered. Contentment and peace filled my cold, suffering heart and wrapped it in a warm embrace. No life flashed before my eyes, because I was completely satisfied with being where I was right now. I would never want to be anywhere else.
Lifting my head to face the one I admire, I let my lips turn into a sincere smile. Wistfully. But showing the bubbling happiness growing in my chest.
I saw you... One last time...
And then all of the pain... it was gone. All of my fears and hates left me as soon as I leaned back. The miasma eroded away my skin, and in that one moment I was no longer Kagura. I was the wind. The evanesence of freedom. The breeze had blown away everything that was me, including my clothes and braided hair, until all that remained was a single snow-white feather that used to reside in it.
I am the summer breeze.
I am the golden dust particles you see, watching you from afar.
I am one with the sapphire sky.
And just as quickly as she appeared in their lives, she was gone. In a puff of miasma.
Sesshomaru started walking away but Inuyasha stopped him,"Wait, Sesshomaru!"
"Inuyasha..." Kagome whispered. They all watched as a small breeze blew more daisy petals, fresh and white, unstained. The petals that were covered in Kagura's blood had disappeared along with her.
"Did," InuYasha hesitated. "Kagura suffer?"
Sesshomaru looked up, as if he would see Kagura flying down.
"She was smiling," he replied, walking away.
InuYasha and his friends stayed, gazing at the wind that stirred the area.
I am the wind...
A snow-white feather drifted into sight and flew alongside the white daisy petals. They faded into the azure sky, as if they were meant to belong there, in Nirvana, and not on Earth.
The free wind...