Author's Note: Written for iy_blind's October prompt, 'salvation'. 'Nixor' is Latin for 'struggle'.
"Haha-ue!"
This smiling gentle woman called Mother is gone and will never come back. Sango calls and calls; the still cold lips do not move. They take her out from that scene of tragedy, saying grownup words she does not hear. Mother is gone; so are the hugs, the whispered "I love you"s, the warmth of a mother's love. That chapter of Sango's life is over before it has even begun.
Mother gives way to Brother and Sango reluctantly accepts the stranger infant who has replaced her. The little alien is dependent on her for every need; a role she shoulders comfortably enough. She will realise, years from now, it is not Kohaku who has replaced Mother, it is her. She has stepped into the empty spot and erased every last trace of Mother from their lives. The only difference is that she answers to Ane-ue.
She feels guilty toward the Mother she barely knew and her brother never did. Sango hopes their mother would be able to forgive her for it.
"Ane-ue?"
They sit in sunshine, enjoying the cool breeze. She looks fondly at him.
"Yes, Kohaku?"
"What happens after we die?"
Sango looks down at her chubby, dirt-stained fingers as though searching them for an answer. "... I suppose we go to a really nice place, where all the people who died went."
"Will we see Mother there?"
"Yes, we'll go and meet Mother." She has said the right things; Kohaku's eyes light up with the prospect of seeing a woman he has never met before.
The years race by; Kohaku and Sango grow tall and strong. She loves fighting; the adrenaline rush is so much more exciting than minding her baby brother. The feeling of performing well, of hitting the mark, of executing a kata flawlessly is intoxicating.
He sits by the side, watching her train, and misses the lazy days under the sun.
She cannot fully communicate the thrill of combat to him, nor the leap in her heart when their father presents her with Hiraikotsu. Sango can only wait for him to be old enough to carry his own weapon and to feel it for himself; she has seen Father lovingly polish a kusari-gama in readiness for that day.
When he begins his martial training, it is painfully obvious Kohaku does not have the stomach to be a warrior. He sees the disappointment in their eyes every time he makes a mistake; the harder he tries not to, the more he makes.
Despite this, Sango persists. Her beloved brother, of the same blood, must have some of the fighting spirit in him, she reasons. And under her devoted tutelage, he gets better. Movements more deft, strikes more precise, soul less afraid.
Mindless slaughter. Sango watches as her tall, strong father crumples to the ground, a soulless husk joining the others littering the dirt. There is nothing beautiful about the way he falls; not like the glorious stories of fallen heroes she has had her ears filled with.
Death is not the glorious and noble passage into the next world that she has been brought up to envision; death is all blood, pain and absence. Her dull-eyed brother, instrument of death, comes for her next. She puts up only token resistance as the steel bites into her flesh; death is more than welcome to take her as it has her family and friends.
He heart lifts when she see him pull away his mask; he is himself again. She goes to comfort him. Sango hopes he remembers that conversation so long ago in the sun and will not be afraid; they are going to be reunited with Mother.
Her last conscious thought as she slips away is whether Kohaku, her innocent baby brother Kohaku, can still be saved. He was too young to die – they were too young to die.
Sango remembers waking up to cloying choking soil and panic; remembers scrabbling for the outside and demanding passage back into the world of the living. It is not her time yet. When she regains her senses, she sheds tears of regret for the fact she ever did so. She is alone, in an uncaring vast world that seems not to feel the loss of her small world. Sango lives for revenge and destruction, to make sure they have not died in vain.
How many times has she faced death now? Sango is perplexed by Miroku, a living man with death in his right hand. If Sango could laugh, she would have done so a long time ago, at the irony of the situation. Nevertheless, she admires the fact he is brimming with life – when she is not furious with him for groping her – and wonders how can he face every day so bravely when he knows it could be his last.
When she learns the truth – Kohaku is barely alive, existing as a mindless puppet – her heart shatters all over again. Sango will free him, no matter what it costs her. She will free him from the terrible things Naraku made him do; she will be the angel of salvation that never came when they lay bleedingbroken in the lord's courtyard.
After every heartbreaking encounter, she sits and dreams of bygone days spent drowsing in sunshine and laughter.
Precious time slips through her hands and nothing has come to pass; her efforts, built on the shifting sands, dissolve.
Kohaku is still dead-but-not-quite. It is almost ridiculous how important this tiny fragment of enchanted crystal is to both him and her. Miroku is a dead man walking, with his fate in his hands. Sango finds herself growing fond of him; she cannot help herself. Two souls intimately familiar with and stalked by death; they have much in common. She relishes the bitter irony of life and death twinned within the two most important men in her life and ponders her inconsistency; where in her body doesalive end and dead begin?
No longer pure herself, Sango now also seeks salvation for her soul; atonement for the things she has done and the things she has not. She seeks to gather the shatteredsharp fragments of her heart and piece them together – if she will continue to live on. She would like to live on, provided she has Kohaku and Miroku at her side.
Her newfound feelings for the monk are powerful, made more so by his returning them. Sango cannot imagine living if he does not – but before she can save him, there is something she must do first.
She has vowed to save her brother; she will cleanse his soul of the atrocities that lie heavy. He was only a puppet – never a killer.
It is almost over. Kohaku is free, somewhere in Naraku's body he fights on, safe under Sesshoumaru's eye. He is a man now; he does not need her anymore. But Miroku is close to the end. Sango remembers making a futile charge on Naraku and nearly killing herself in the process; poison flows through her veins, mixing with her blood. She remembers opening her eyes to see the pain in his eyes, the familiar deep-seated fear she knows is never for himself; it was always for her.
No need for that now. She has done the right thing by her brother and their people; he is free to survive and carry on their legacy, they are avenged and may rest in peace. As long as there is one survivor, it is enough.
Besides, she must atone for her sin. There can be no salvation for one who intended to kill an innocent child; no ridding one's hands of the phantom blood so nearly shed.
She should have known, after seeing Kohaku stumble through Naraku's traps.
Her resolve is iron. Sango tugs at Miroku's sleeve. "Houshi-sama... take me with you."
Numb with pain, he can only say her name. The trembling touch of his hand tells her everything she needs to know.
She feels her battered body being lifted; he is running, moving as more of the acrid poison fills the air. He is shouting something; Sango strains her ears to catch it.
"I can't do that, Sango! I want you to live!"
She is torn between happiness and despair. Miroku is a fool; he has no idea that she has never been completely alive. And yet...
... she is happy that there is someone who will not give up on her. Sango knows they will make it through as long as he is there.
Let them judge her in the end, and only then; she has a life to lead first.
"Ane-ue?"
They sit in sunshine, enjoying the cool breeze. She looks fondly at him.
"Yes, Kohaku?"
"What happens after we die?"
Sango looks down at her chubby, dirt-stained fingers as though searching them for an answer. "... I suppose we go to a really nice place, where all the people who died went."
"Will we see Mother there?"
"Yes, we'll go and meet Mother." She has said the right things; Kohaku's eyes light up with the prospect of seeing a woman he has never met before.
Adult Sango looks fondly on the memory and silently tells Mother to wait a little longer.