Title: If Your Heart Could Speak What Would It Say?
Author: Rachelle Ryan
Address: Aisha_666@hotmail.com
Summary: When your world is turned upside down all you have is your friends. The gumi has this lesson applied with a vengeance. Will friendship and love pull them through? Or will Shippo pay with his life?
Type: Romance/Drama Mainly Yaoi ShippoxMiroku with Het KagomexInuyasha SangoxKouga
A/N: This story it a Christmas Present to my sister Aishi-Cc. Merry Christmas!
Chapter One: ~Shippo
^Inuyasha! You big idiot! Why'd you have to go chasing after Naraku like that?!^ I fumed silently. Trying to cover up my fear more than anything. Trying but not succeeding. Fear was currently making my hands shake and my heart race. I wasn't too steady on my feet either, but my eyes were working clearly. Which certainly wasn't helping. After trying to lock my knees for the hundredth time I gave up the fight and sank to the forest floor joining Sango, Miroku, Kilala, and Kagome, all of my friends minus the impetuous and hotheaded Inuyasha who was trying his hardest right now to cleave Naraku in half heedless of our plight. They however were lying where they'd fallen, victims of Naraku's trap. I took a deep breath and crawled over damp grass and fallen leaves to the shimmering sky blue barrier surrounding them ignoring the prickling feeling that swept over my skin as well as the crushing weight of fatigue that hadn't left me since Miroku had thrown me off his shoulder and through the outer limits of the spell.
^They don't look good.^ In fact they looked worse than they ever had. Brave Sango's face gazed up at the sky. It was paler than the deathly pallid hue of our first meeting when she was only being kept alive by the Shikon jewel; she was the gray of a day old corpse. I knew the dead, in my life I'd seen plenty of them, and the only way I could tell she was still alive were the shallow breaths barely raising her pink and white kimono covered chest. Fearless Kilala showed no sign of life, at all, she lay to the right of her master like a drowned cat. I'd never seen her so still before. She was always rushing into action bowling over her enemies. Kind Kagome was crumpled on her side arms stretched out, legs curled in towards her torso, her eyes closed, her face contorted in pain. Spasms made her limbs jerk rhythmically seemingly to the beat of my heart, yet her movements were getting weaker as her energy left her. As the only one of us often left without devastating injuries it was eerie to see her so feebly clinging to life. Finally I let my eyes drift to Miroku. Unlike the others he had fallen forward. His right arm was still extended from the hasty throw that had overbalanced him while his other arm lay to his side grasping his staff in fingers clenched to whiteness. His chin rested on the ground propping his face up. I silently wished it hadn't. Sightless brown eyes pierced me filling me with desperation. Sweat poured down his cheeks to dribble down that betraying chin, his jaw clenched keeping in unspoken screams, and the lines of his face had deepened the way they did when the pain was burning up inside him. It was worse than when the poisonous insects were killing him from the within.
I tore my eyes away. Gawking at my dying friends wasn't going to help them, and I refused to be left behind again. Forcibly turning my attention from the gumi I scrutinized the semi-sphere of magic. My eyes widened when they detected the odafu trying to conceal itself inside the flickering web of magic. The scrap of paper seemed to fade in and out. Those without eyes to see probably wouldn't have been able to find it. I swallowed as I read the kanji. "Oh, no." I whispered. ^What has that bastard done!^
Only I knew, and it scared me. I recognized this spell from stories my father had told me. Our family was old, with ties to some of the great magic workers, and many of their ancient spells were still passed down by word of mouth. My great-great grandfather Yoko used this spell once to annihilate a town that had insulted him. It stripped the sufferer of its life force, of their future, their past, all the potential, all their power, once the spell had drained every last drop all the caster had to do was come back and collect it. The thought of Naraku benefiting from what little life Miroku had left after his curse of the wind tunnel made me sick. I could see the reason behind this too.
Shortly Inuyasha would return to find all of his friends dead. Without a mark on their bodies, because the spell was too old and too powerful and too swift for any of us to fight it, even Kagome and Miroku. He would blame himself for our deaths. Doubt, grief, and guilt would provide all the revenge Naraku needed. This was a case of hitting two birds with one rock. Not only would Inuyasha live in agony but Naraku would also gain all of the powers of his enemies.
Or that would be what would have happened, if Miroku hadn't thrown me free of the spell. I inched closer to the barrier. An unpleasant numbness had settled in my hands and arms during my stillness but even though I couldn't really tell what they were doing I knew rationally that my hands were pulling me forward. When I was nose to nose with the blue wall I pushed myself to my feet. I swayed gently and blinked back the grayness that was encroaching on my vision. ^Whoa.^ Laying my arms against the barrier I got a sharp jolt. Ignoring it I stretched to my full length and managed barely to get my fingertips on the paper. I pinched my fingers on its edge and pulled. It didn't come away, I hadn't held out the hope that it would, but it slid along the field. I stopped when the odafu was at eye level. Harsh pants filled the air. My pants. But I glanced past the creamy paper to my friends and swallowed. Kagome had stopped her twitching and the rest had become very, very motionless.
I turned the full weight of my gaze on the spell odafu. I felt that the heat of my hatred should have caused it to burst into flames, but I didn't have that power. Useless illusionist, that was me, worth nothing in a fight. My father had been so disappointed. I threw off the well-trod path with a wry twist of my lips. ^Naraku, luckily enough, thinks the same way.^ He would never imagined that I knew how to break the charm.
I gripped the top on one side and bottom of the paper on the other. Closing my eyes I took a deep breath both to herald the composure I desperately needed as well as the air to keep me on my feet. I summoned to my mind the words that would save my friends. "ÝÆ Æ!" Croaked out of my throat the foreign and ancient sounds that harshly split the air.
There was a moment of deadly calm, and I smiled ironically to myself, then the backlash hit. Thousands of red-hot knives ripped through my body. My eyes jerked open against my will and so I saw the searing blue flames consuming me. I opened my mouth to scream only to feel the air plucked from me to be replaced with fire.
^AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!^
****
Breathing hurt. Thinking hurt. Everything hurt.
^I'm *alive*?^ I winced. ^Yep, have to be alive. Dead don't hurt so much.^
That wasn't right my mind fuzzily protested. Energy transference spells, like the spell that Naraku had used, were designed so that only the caster could safely break them. A mage wouldn't want to have the product of all his hard work going to someone else after all. Backlash in this case definitely should have been fatal. It was a major working. Bastard must not have cast it right. Stupid arrogant trickster- ^Wait, why am complaining?^
I tried to move only to have a scream of agony ripped from my raw throat. I collapsed back down wheezing and flinching at the spikes of pain that shot through my chest with every rough stirring of air. ^Oh, yeah that's why.^
"Ship-po?" Kagome whispered sounding confused and a little frightened.
^Why does she sound like that? I'm not really burned am I?^ Images flashed through my mind of me charred and blackened, maybe missing whole parts because they'd been burned away. Harsh pants wracked my body with pain. The dark rushed up and I embraced it.
~Naraku
My hand arm was still deadened from the blows of Tetsusaiga. The extra weight of the blade seemed to be less and less of a detriment to the fool. I clenched my hand into a fist inside the concealing sleeve of my robe ignoring the fact that I could not feel it and gazed at the patch of ground that mocked me.
"Well, another oh so brilliant plan failed?" The tendons of my hands tightened involuntarily at the silky smooth arrogance of Kagura's voice. I reined in my rage with years worth of experience.
"Remember who holds your heart wench." My voice was the icy stream over boulders that showed my power and control. I never let the touch of disappointment I felt at the less than successful conclusion of this attempt color my tone. I held the control, nothing happened without my planning for it. I heard her kimono swish as she shifted nervously and knew I had won.
I turned my attention once more to the scorched earth at my feet. At its beginning lay two scraps of paper incongruously unmarked. They showed no trace of the ink and power poured into their fibers mere days ago. I eyed the blackened ground with distaste. ^Miroku or Kagome I wonder?^ The length was little help, at almost two meters it could have been either if the flames were slightly indiscriminate. ^I do so hope it was Kagome.^ The multitude of possibilities stretched before me and I resolutely ignored the unease in my heart that questioned the reason I had set this trap. Inuyasha and his merry band were just annoyances that I was tiring of playing with. I let a cruel smirk spread across my features. ^And now they are short one member.^
~Kagome
Porcelain white fingers lay limply on the straw mat of Kaede's floor. They were delicate and long, like I always imagined a musician's hands would look like. I let my eyes travel up the expanse of white shrouding a chest that lifted with what seemed like all to little frequency. Soon red bled into the fabric. Long strands of it as if blood had been dumped on the head and it had dripped down to create little streams only stopping as the flow trickled to a stop. The delicate neck emerging from cloth was hard to distinguish from the fabric due to its deathly hue but it soon led to a face that I had seen a hundred times before. Yet it wasn't. Pale in a way I'd only seen in vampire films and just as aristocratic, that face was one of a man. Cheeks that used to be round and chubby were now prominent angular planes. The cute button nose Miroku had so often tweaked was replaced with a refined arch. Even the eyelashes casting shadows due to the flickering fire were different. They were no longer the orange flame color I was used to but were the same blood red as the abundance of hair that puddled around his head and flowed down past his thighs. His eyebrows, the same startling color, just emphasized the pastiness of his skin. The bangs that had created the illusion of bloody rivers on his shirt were longer than the hair he had usually kept tied in a ponytail before-before this.
Shippo had grown up. Only it happened in minutes instead of years and I was afraid it would kill him. I imagine parents are startled when they turn around and find that their baby girl or boy has grown up and doesn't need them anymore. They had nothing on me. Shippo looked like flesh stretched over bone he was so thin. Kaede explained that was because his body surrendered all it's reserves in this enormous growth spurt. ^My God, he grew almost five feet!^ Apparently everything grew with him, hair and nails included. And now he wouldn't wake up.
Lips I'd seen curved into a smile and gapping with the need to scream were closed hiding the pointed canines I always thought made him look like a cute baby werewolf. They hadn't opened for four days except when Kaede pried them open to trickle water and soup down his throat. It wasn't helping. He just kept getting thinner. Kaede is my sort of sister and sometimes I get flashes of things she's not saying. I know she thinks he should already be dead and is more than a little worried at the reason he's not. She hasn't said anything, and she's trying just as hard to save him as if nothing was bothering her, but I see the way she looks at him when she doesn't think I'm looking.
I shifted my gaze to his feet. Pointing straight up were his regular human like feet. My mind drifted back to those horrible moments in the field. All I knew was pain, pain that reached into every corner of me, when it stopped that's when I saw Shippo. He was the first sight that filled my eyes and I almost didn't realize it was him. In fact without the ripped remains of his clothes scattered around him I might not have believed that he really was Shippo. Who could blame me? Shippo'd aged ten years, maybe more. Gone was his flame orange hair, his paw like feet, his child body, his tail! I'd look at him and see someone who could pass for a human as long as he brushed his hair over his pointy ears. The itch of forming tears made me close my eyes. Taking a deep breath I tried to stop. But my pursed lips kept on trembling and I had to swallow the mucus clogging my throat. I hit my knees with a thud. ^Oh God. Oh God.^ I started rocking as the sobs escaped me.
Strong arms wrapped around me from behind holding onto me as I tried to make the hurt less. ~Inuyasha
I sat hunched outside of Kaede's hut staring at a patch of dirt where feet had worn grass away. Kagome was inside again.
Kagome was inside again. I was out here. Out here waiting.
I'm the son of a demon yet I can't stop her pain. She's dying right alongside our friend. And I don't know what to do.
^Our friend. When did that happen? When did I get even one friend^?
Growing up I'd see other kids playing with each other and I hated them for what they had. It's funny that I didn't notice when I finally got it. Somewhere between "Sit" and Kouga I found out I'd do anything to help them and they would do the same. The feeling of having someone guard your back and completely trusting they will and can and knowing they trust you to do the same for them, that's addictive.
I loved Kikyou but we weren't friends.
That hurt when I realized it. I don't know when I began to equate love with friendship, but I can't find it in myself to regret it. I know it's the only kind of love I'll ever have returned.
The smell of her tears drifted down with the ash from the chimney hole and I sprung to my feet. My friend needed me. I was in the door before two breaths. She was on the floor coming apart, rocking like I used to when I was a kid and the hurt was too much. In an instant I was there and she was in my arms. Kagome felt so fragile as she shook without restraint. Eventually she stilled, spent. I just held her as we stared at our friend not knowing what to say, not knowing how to make this better.
"I woke first. I couldn't believe my eyes. He- his clothes- I- I didn't know what had happened. But- He was Shippo." I felt the echo of her words on my breast. They emerged in a flat and weary tone. It was almost like Kagome was reciting a eulogy. Her head rolled back and forth across my chest in a shake of denial. "He opened his eyes and the terror they held scared me. He's just a little boy Inuyasha. He didn't deserve this."
There was no emotion in her voice. No pleas, no anger at the unfairness of it all. It was so unlike her. Kagome was a whirlwind, never motionless, never so accepting of the world's cruelties. It sounded like she was giving up. The savageness that was my birthright howled inside my heart. Mentally I growled. ^*Mine*.^ Roughly I pulled her around to face me.
I gazed into her shocked face with a ferocity that amazed even me but I couldn't help myself. My emotions often so befuddled were focused and my instincts were helping them to ambush my body. Through the red haze in my mind I could hear myself saying, "You will not give up. I will not give up. We will find a way. Do you understand me?" Kagome nodded her head dumbly at my commands. "You will not let slip away. For your sake and for Shippo's. You are mine and I will not let you go." Her eyes already impossibly wide grew larger at my possessiveness. Silence descended on me with a fell swoop as she submitted to my will like a good pack mate. My mind suddenly reconnected to my mouth and I wished desperately to unsay those things and I felt fear drying out my mouth.
I'm an animal.
Something I encourage people to forget, but I'd just- Gently I let go of Kagome's imprisoned arms as if I could undo it all by releasing her. As if I could show her with gentleness that I wasn't a monster. Her wide eyes narrowed and I expected any second for her to cry, "Sit" out of revulsion and shock. Ashamed and resigned I closed my eyes.
"I'm yours." My eyes jerked open at the speculation in her voice. Kagome's head was tilted like a puzzled bird of prey who knew he'd see the prey if he looked hard enough and couldn't figure out why he hadn't yet. Her gaze was frank and open but containing the same hunter's absorption as she searched my face and I could see the dawn of understanding in them. "*I'm yours.*" She repeated with a fierceness that touched something inside me. Her gaze pinned me. "And you're mine." My heart thumped and inside I crowed as my place was confirmed. She hadn't rejected me, she's made me part of her pack, I wasn't going to be chased off.
"I'm yours." The gravity of my tone was fitting for such a pledge, but despite the insight she was showing I didn't think that Kagome really comprehended what it was she was giving me and I her.
~Miroku
The bead swirling beneath my fingers was slightly warm due to the amount of time I'd spent rolling it around its string. The physical sensation was slightly distracting but it kept me from doing something more damaging, like trying to punch my fist through the earth. Blue skies unmarred by clouds seemed to be declaring the perfection of the day, to me however it just echoed with mocking laughter. I was alive, I'd been saved, but I'd failed. In a way I suppose I should be happy, four out of five isn't bad, but all I felt was a bitter shame. Everyone was alright except for the one person I tried to help. It was petty of me but I couldn't help feeling betrayed. Fate was playing cruel tricks and the youngest of us had given his life for ours. It wasn't right, not after everything I'd done. I was supposed to save him, not him me
Part of me ached with the knowledge of Shippo's imminent death. It was the throbbing pain of emptiness. I, Miroku, may just have cornered the market on emptiness with my curse. Now a new piece of my heart was being chiseled away and there seemed to be nothing I could do to stop it. I hate feeling helpless. There is no worse feeling. Even as I lay dying under Naraku's spell I felt better knowing that I had saved Shippo, that at least one person that I care about wouldn't die at Naraku's hands. I had done *something*, and my conscience was clean. Well all of us had survived Naraku's treachery, for the moment, but Shippo was going to succumb and then the hole in my heart would grow increasingly wider.
The high clear notes of children's' laughter floated past my ears on the wind and a bitter flash of resentment struck my heart. My lips thinned as I clenched my jaw. ^How dare they-^ My anger drained from me as quickly as it had sparked. This is a cruel world. One death, no matter how innocent the victim, was not enough to make life come to a stand still in a world where whole villages were routinely wiped out by sickness and bandits. And they were children, I could no more begrudge them their ever fleeting bits of happiness than I could take the curse from my family.
A feeling of gruff power, if power could ever be described as *gruff*, moved into my sphere of isolation here at the fence surrounded the fields. "Good day Lady Kaede." I murmured, not bothering to take my squinting eyes from the disdainful sky. The Lady in question let out a very un-maidenly snort letting me pinpoint her position. She was standing almost directly behind me but a little to the right.
"I doubt very much ye find it *good*, Monk." A frown pulled down the corners of my mouth at the concern and honesty in her voice. Still.
I grudgingly had to admit, "That is true." There was a slight swish as she came up beside me and still I didn't look at her.
"The boy has sacrificed much for thee. Ye would denounce his deeds?" Her usual crustiness was back and rebuking my bad humor. Instead of making me repentant it instead stoked the embers of my anger.
The heat exploded in me loosening my tongue. "Yes damn it! I would have him be a coward if it would keep him alive!" The heavens remained unmoved by my glare as the Lady remained still as rock by my side. I wanted her to jump at my searing words. I wanted her to flinch away from the flames of my temper. How could the world not feel the tempest in my heart?
"Because ye love him." Kaede's words struck like a fist to the gut and I was left speechless as she went on. "Kikyou, my sister, held my position before. I feared for her life oft' times. To be on the side of the light is to court the side of the dark and it has far more poisonous claws. I could not see why she should risk her life so. Let those in peril protect themselves. But once the duty fell to me I could no more ignore it than she. Ye know the pull of the good fight, ye know that it can not be denied." Finished with her veritable speech she paused as if waiting for me to say something. When I didn't she turned and walked away.
I put my face in my hands ignoring the beads pressing into my right cheek.
~Kilala
Sango was in the same position she's held for the last three hours and I was worried. The first time our family was destroyed I felt the same need, same bloodlust, to seek out those who had stolen them from us and to rip their throats from their bodies. Yet this time our member had fallen and there was no effort to revenge him. A sort of cloud had settled over the family and none of the members seemed to be able to bring themselves to declare the hunt. I know the evil one that took the rest of our family is the cause of this new wound. Deep in my soul the wish eviscerate the motherless toad has grown ten fold, but I myself could not bear to leave my family so defenseless in their present state.
I sighed and shifted my head to a more comfortable position on my paws. This stillness, this sense of hopelessness, it is like a poison eating at our family. Sango's heart is still sick from the loss of her sibling to the evil one. Her heart is slowly losing its ability to reach out to others. I can see in her the fear, the fear of loss.
One of the new members, Kagome, has the scent of one who has not seen the death of one she cares about. This must be her first, and I am not sure she will be able to pull herself out of the void. I remember the deep ache the almost unbearable weight of guilt for surviving that I experienced with my first. Humans die far too quickly, and witnessing their deaths is never easy for me, but I have learned that the only way to make the hurt less is to love more. Kagome does not have this experience and I fear that the others may fail to understand the danger, I have seen many a human follow another into the void incapable of dealing with their loss.
The Monk, Miroku, smells heartsick. I snort at that. He might not know it yet but he is. He does not seem as lost as the girl, he already knows the feel of death, but I fear that the fight will go out of him. He is a deadly fighter and I know the two ways such men deal with the deaths of their mates. One is the listless apathy that generally leads to their deaths as they fade away and another is the berserker rage of madness. It is a more explosive way to met death and usually takes others with them.
The boy, Inuyasha, he does not seem affected but I know the truth. He is holding on by his claws trying to hold the family together, trying to keep the girl from following. His fierce devotion is barely making a dent in the cloud and I can sense his desperation. He knows, as I do, the need to cling to those you have left but I worry that he will find no one left to hold.
I focus on the oldest remaining member of my pack, my family, my clan and know that the bindings that hold us together are stretching to the breaking point. Even if I did not have centuries worth of memories to tell me this, her strained and stony face would have told me. Dressed as if for the hunt, in black and pink with hair pulled back, she had sat with knees folded and hands resting upon them in a silent pose of sorrow for the last three hours. Times like these I wish I had the ability to talk human.
Tbc
Author: Rachelle Ryan
Address: Aisha_666@hotmail.com
Summary: When your world is turned upside down all you have is your friends. The gumi has this lesson applied with a vengeance. Will friendship and love pull them through? Or will Shippo pay with his life?
Type: Romance/Drama Mainly Yaoi ShippoxMiroku with Het KagomexInuyasha SangoxKouga
A/N: This story it a Christmas Present to my sister Aishi-Cc. Merry Christmas!
Chapter One: ~Shippo
^Inuyasha! You big idiot! Why'd you have to go chasing after Naraku like that?!^ I fumed silently. Trying to cover up my fear more than anything. Trying but not succeeding. Fear was currently making my hands shake and my heart race. I wasn't too steady on my feet either, but my eyes were working clearly. Which certainly wasn't helping. After trying to lock my knees for the hundredth time I gave up the fight and sank to the forest floor joining Sango, Miroku, Kilala, and Kagome, all of my friends minus the impetuous and hotheaded Inuyasha who was trying his hardest right now to cleave Naraku in half heedless of our plight. They however were lying where they'd fallen, victims of Naraku's trap. I took a deep breath and crawled over damp grass and fallen leaves to the shimmering sky blue barrier surrounding them ignoring the prickling feeling that swept over my skin as well as the crushing weight of fatigue that hadn't left me since Miroku had thrown me off his shoulder and through the outer limits of the spell.
^They don't look good.^ In fact they looked worse than they ever had. Brave Sango's face gazed up at the sky. It was paler than the deathly pallid hue of our first meeting when she was only being kept alive by the Shikon jewel; she was the gray of a day old corpse. I knew the dead, in my life I'd seen plenty of them, and the only way I could tell she was still alive were the shallow breaths barely raising her pink and white kimono covered chest. Fearless Kilala showed no sign of life, at all, she lay to the right of her master like a drowned cat. I'd never seen her so still before. She was always rushing into action bowling over her enemies. Kind Kagome was crumpled on her side arms stretched out, legs curled in towards her torso, her eyes closed, her face contorted in pain. Spasms made her limbs jerk rhythmically seemingly to the beat of my heart, yet her movements were getting weaker as her energy left her. As the only one of us often left without devastating injuries it was eerie to see her so feebly clinging to life. Finally I let my eyes drift to Miroku. Unlike the others he had fallen forward. His right arm was still extended from the hasty throw that had overbalanced him while his other arm lay to his side grasping his staff in fingers clenched to whiteness. His chin rested on the ground propping his face up. I silently wished it hadn't. Sightless brown eyes pierced me filling me with desperation. Sweat poured down his cheeks to dribble down that betraying chin, his jaw clenched keeping in unspoken screams, and the lines of his face had deepened the way they did when the pain was burning up inside him. It was worse than when the poisonous insects were killing him from the within.
I tore my eyes away. Gawking at my dying friends wasn't going to help them, and I refused to be left behind again. Forcibly turning my attention from the gumi I scrutinized the semi-sphere of magic. My eyes widened when they detected the odafu trying to conceal itself inside the flickering web of magic. The scrap of paper seemed to fade in and out. Those without eyes to see probably wouldn't have been able to find it. I swallowed as I read the kanji. "Oh, no." I whispered. ^What has that bastard done!^
Only I knew, and it scared me. I recognized this spell from stories my father had told me. Our family was old, with ties to some of the great magic workers, and many of their ancient spells were still passed down by word of mouth. My great-great grandfather Yoko used this spell once to annihilate a town that had insulted him. It stripped the sufferer of its life force, of their future, their past, all the potential, all their power, once the spell had drained every last drop all the caster had to do was come back and collect it. The thought of Naraku benefiting from what little life Miroku had left after his curse of the wind tunnel made me sick. I could see the reason behind this too.
Shortly Inuyasha would return to find all of his friends dead. Without a mark on their bodies, because the spell was too old and too powerful and too swift for any of us to fight it, even Kagome and Miroku. He would blame himself for our deaths. Doubt, grief, and guilt would provide all the revenge Naraku needed. This was a case of hitting two birds with one rock. Not only would Inuyasha live in agony but Naraku would also gain all of the powers of his enemies.
Or that would be what would have happened, if Miroku hadn't thrown me free of the spell. I inched closer to the barrier. An unpleasant numbness had settled in my hands and arms during my stillness but even though I couldn't really tell what they were doing I knew rationally that my hands were pulling me forward. When I was nose to nose with the blue wall I pushed myself to my feet. I swayed gently and blinked back the grayness that was encroaching on my vision. ^Whoa.^ Laying my arms against the barrier I got a sharp jolt. Ignoring it I stretched to my full length and managed barely to get my fingertips on the paper. I pinched my fingers on its edge and pulled. It didn't come away, I hadn't held out the hope that it would, but it slid along the field. I stopped when the odafu was at eye level. Harsh pants filled the air. My pants. But I glanced past the creamy paper to my friends and swallowed. Kagome had stopped her twitching and the rest had become very, very motionless.
I turned the full weight of my gaze on the spell odafu. I felt that the heat of my hatred should have caused it to burst into flames, but I didn't have that power. Useless illusionist, that was me, worth nothing in a fight. My father had been so disappointed. I threw off the well-trod path with a wry twist of my lips. ^Naraku, luckily enough, thinks the same way.^ He would never imagined that I knew how to break the charm.
I gripped the top on one side and bottom of the paper on the other. Closing my eyes I took a deep breath both to herald the composure I desperately needed as well as the air to keep me on my feet. I summoned to my mind the words that would save my friends. "ÝÆ Æ!" Croaked out of my throat the foreign and ancient sounds that harshly split the air.
There was a moment of deadly calm, and I smiled ironically to myself, then the backlash hit. Thousands of red-hot knives ripped through my body. My eyes jerked open against my will and so I saw the searing blue flames consuming me. I opened my mouth to scream only to feel the air plucked from me to be replaced with fire.
^AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!^
****
Breathing hurt. Thinking hurt. Everything hurt.
^I'm *alive*?^ I winced. ^Yep, have to be alive. Dead don't hurt so much.^
That wasn't right my mind fuzzily protested. Energy transference spells, like the spell that Naraku had used, were designed so that only the caster could safely break them. A mage wouldn't want to have the product of all his hard work going to someone else after all. Backlash in this case definitely should have been fatal. It was a major working. Bastard must not have cast it right. Stupid arrogant trickster- ^Wait, why am complaining?^
I tried to move only to have a scream of agony ripped from my raw throat. I collapsed back down wheezing and flinching at the spikes of pain that shot through my chest with every rough stirring of air. ^Oh, yeah that's why.^
"Ship-po?" Kagome whispered sounding confused and a little frightened.
^Why does she sound like that? I'm not really burned am I?^ Images flashed through my mind of me charred and blackened, maybe missing whole parts because they'd been burned away. Harsh pants wracked my body with pain. The dark rushed up and I embraced it.
~Naraku
My hand arm was still deadened from the blows of Tetsusaiga. The extra weight of the blade seemed to be less and less of a detriment to the fool. I clenched my hand into a fist inside the concealing sleeve of my robe ignoring the fact that I could not feel it and gazed at the patch of ground that mocked me.
"Well, another oh so brilliant plan failed?" The tendons of my hands tightened involuntarily at the silky smooth arrogance of Kagura's voice. I reined in my rage with years worth of experience.
"Remember who holds your heart wench." My voice was the icy stream over boulders that showed my power and control. I never let the touch of disappointment I felt at the less than successful conclusion of this attempt color my tone. I held the control, nothing happened without my planning for it. I heard her kimono swish as she shifted nervously and knew I had won.
I turned my attention once more to the scorched earth at my feet. At its beginning lay two scraps of paper incongruously unmarked. They showed no trace of the ink and power poured into their fibers mere days ago. I eyed the blackened ground with distaste. ^Miroku or Kagome I wonder?^ The length was little help, at almost two meters it could have been either if the flames were slightly indiscriminate. ^I do so hope it was Kagome.^ The multitude of possibilities stretched before me and I resolutely ignored the unease in my heart that questioned the reason I had set this trap. Inuyasha and his merry band were just annoyances that I was tiring of playing with. I let a cruel smirk spread across my features. ^And now they are short one member.^
~Kagome
Porcelain white fingers lay limply on the straw mat of Kaede's floor. They were delicate and long, like I always imagined a musician's hands would look like. I let my eyes travel up the expanse of white shrouding a chest that lifted with what seemed like all to little frequency. Soon red bled into the fabric. Long strands of it as if blood had been dumped on the head and it had dripped down to create little streams only stopping as the flow trickled to a stop. The delicate neck emerging from cloth was hard to distinguish from the fabric due to its deathly hue but it soon led to a face that I had seen a hundred times before. Yet it wasn't. Pale in a way I'd only seen in vampire films and just as aristocratic, that face was one of a man. Cheeks that used to be round and chubby were now prominent angular planes. The cute button nose Miroku had so often tweaked was replaced with a refined arch. Even the eyelashes casting shadows due to the flickering fire were different. They were no longer the orange flame color I was used to but were the same blood red as the abundance of hair that puddled around his head and flowed down past his thighs. His eyebrows, the same startling color, just emphasized the pastiness of his skin. The bangs that had created the illusion of bloody rivers on his shirt were longer than the hair he had usually kept tied in a ponytail before-before this.
Shippo had grown up. Only it happened in minutes instead of years and I was afraid it would kill him. I imagine parents are startled when they turn around and find that their baby girl or boy has grown up and doesn't need them anymore. They had nothing on me. Shippo looked like flesh stretched over bone he was so thin. Kaede explained that was because his body surrendered all it's reserves in this enormous growth spurt. ^My God, he grew almost five feet!^ Apparently everything grew with him, hair and nails included. And now he wouldn't wake up.
Lips I'd seen curved into a smile and gapping with the need to scream were closed hiding the pointed canines I always thought made him look like a cute baby werewolf. They hadn't opened for four days except when Kaede pried them open to trickle water and soup down his throat. It wasn't helping. He just kept getting thinner. Kaede is my sort of sister and sometimes I get flashes of things she's not saying. I know she thinks he should already be dead and is more than a little worried at the reason he's not. She hasn't said anything, and she's trying just as hard to save him as if nothing was bothering her, but I see the way she looks at him when she doesn't think I'm looking.
I shifted my gaze to his feet. Pointing straight up were his regular human like feet. My mind drifted back to those horrible moments in the field. All I knew was pain, pain that reached into every corner of me, when it stopped that's when I saw Shippo. He was the first sight that filled my eyes and I almost didn't realize it was him. In fact without the ripped remains of his clothes scattered around him I might not have believed that he really was Shippo. Who could blame me? Shippo'd aged ten years, maybe more. Gone was his flame orange hair, his paw like feet, his child body, his tail! I'd look at him and see someone who could pass for a human as long as he brushed his hair over his pointy ears. The itch of forming tears made me close my eyes. Taking a deep breath I tried to stop. But my pursed lips kept on trembling and I had to swallow the mucus clogging my throat. I hit my knees with a thud. ^Oh God. Oh God.^ I started rocking as the sobs escaped me.
Strong arms wrapped around me from behind holding onto me as I tried to make the hurt less. ~Inuyasha
I sat hunched outside of Kaede's hut staring at a patch of dirt where feet had worn grass away. Kagome was inside again.
Kagome was inside again. I was out here. Out here waiting.
I'm the son of a demon yet I can't stop her pain. She's dying right alongside our friend. And I don't know what to do.
^Our friend. When did that happen? When did I get even one friend^?
Growing up I'd see other kids playing with each other and I hated them for what they had. It's funny that I didn't notice when I finally got it. Somewhere between "Sit" and Kouga I found out I'd do anything to help them and they would do the same. The feeling of having someone guard your back and completely trusting they will and can and knowing they trust you to do the same for them, that's addictive.
I loved Kikyou but we weren't friends.
That hurt when I realized it. I don't know when I began to equate love with friendship, but I can't find it in myself to regret it. I know it's the only kind of love I'll ever have returned.
The smell of her tears drifted down with the ash from the chimney hole and I sprung to my feet. My friend needed me. I was in the door before two breaths. She was on the floor coming apart, rocking like I used to when I was a kid and the hurt was too much. In an instant I was there and she was in my arms. Kagome felt so fragile as she shook without restraint. Eventually she stilled, spent. I just held her as we stared at our friend not knowing what to say, not knowing how to make this better.
"I woke first. I couldn't believe my eyes. He- his clothes- I- I didn't know what had happened. But- He was Shippo." I felt the echo of her words on my breast. They emerged in a flat and weary tone. It was almost like Kagome was reciting a eulogy. Her head rolled back and forth across my chest in a shake of denial. "He opened his eyes and the terror they held scared me. He's just a little boy Inuyasha. He didn't deserve this."
There was no emotion in her voice. No pleas, no anger at the unfairness of it all. It was so unlike her. Kagome was a whirlwind, never motionless, never so accepting of the world's cruelties. It sounded like she was giving up. The savageness that was my birthright howled inside my heart. Mentally I growled. ^*Mine*.^ Roughly I pulled her around to face me.
I gazed into her shocked face with a ferocity that amazed even me but I couldn't help myself. My emotions often so befuddled were focused and my instincts were helping them to ambush my body. Through the red haze in my mind I could hear myself saying, "You will not give up. I will not give up. We will find a way. Do you understand me?" Kagome nodded her head dumbly at my commands. "You will not let slip away. For your sake and for Shippo's. You are mine and I will not let you go." Her eyes already impossibly wide grew larger at my possessiveness. Silence descended on me with a fell swoop as she submitted to my will like a good pack mate. My mind suddenly reconnected to my mouth and I wished desperately to unsay those things and I felt fear drying out my mouth.
I'm an animal.
Something I encourage people to forget, but I'd just- Gently I let go of Kagome's imprisoned arms as if I could undo it all by releasing her. As if I could show her with gentleness that I wasn't a monster. Her wide eyes narrowed and I expected any second for her to cry, "Sit" out of revulsion and shock. Ashamed and resigned I closed my eyes.
"I'm yours." My eyes jerked open at the speculation in her voice. Kagome's head was tilted like a puzzled bird of prey who knew he'd see the prey if he looked hard enough and couldn't figure out why he hadn't yet. Her gaze was frank and open but containing the same hunter's absorption as she searched my face and I could see the dawn of understanding in them. "*I'm yours.*" She repeated with a fierceness that touched something inside me. Her gaze pinned me. "And you're mine." My heart thumped and inside I crowed as my place was confirmed. She hadn't rejected me, she's made me part of her pack, I wasn't going to be chased off.
"I'm yours." The gravity of my tone was fitting for such a pledge, but despite the insight she was showing I didn't think that Kagome really comprehended what it was she was giving me and I her.
~Miroku
The bead swirling beneath my fingers was slightly warm due to the amount of time I'd spent rolling it around its string. The physical sensation was slightly distracting but it kept me from doing something more damaging, like trying to punch my fist through the earth. Blue skies unmarred by clouds seemed to be declaring the perfection of the day, to me however it just echoed with mocking laughter. I was alive, I'd been saved, but I'd failed. In a way I suppose I should be happy, four out of five isn't bad, but all I felt was a bitter shame. Everyone was alright except for the one person I tried to help. It was petty of me but I couldn't help feeling betrayed. Fate was playing cruel tricks and the youngest of us had given his life for ours. It wasn't right, not after everything I'd done. I was supposed to save him, not him me
Part of me ached with the knowledge of Shippo's imminent death. It was the throbbing pain of emptiness. I, Miroku, may just have cornered the market on emptiness with my curse. Now a new piece of my heart was being chiseled away and there seemed to be nothing I could do to stop it. I hate feeling helpless. There is no worse feeling. Even as I lay dying under Naraku's spell I felt better knowing that I had saved Shippo, that at least one person that I care about wouldn't die at Naraku's hands. I had done *something*, and my conscience was clean. Well all of us had survived Naraku's treachery, for the moment, but Shippo was going to succumb and then the hole in my heart would grow increasingly wider.
The high clear notes of children's' laughter floated past my ears on the wind and a bitter flash of resentment struck my heart. My lips thinned as I clenched my jaw. ^How dare they-^ My anger drained from me as quickly as it had sparked. This is a cruel world. One death, no matter how innocent the victim, was not enough to make life come to a stand still in a world where whole villages were routinely wiped out by sickness and bandits. And they were children, I could no more begrudge them their ever fleeting bits of happiness than I could take the curse from my family.
A feeling of gruff power, if power could ever be described as *gruff*, moved into my sphere of isolation here at the fence surrounded the fields. "Good day Lady Kaede." I murmured, not bothering to take my squinting eyes from the disdainful sky. The Lady in question let out a very un-maidenly snort letting me pinpoint her position. She was standing almost directly behind me but a little to the right.
"I doubt very much ye find it *good*, Monk." A frown pulled down the corners of my mouth at the concern and honesty in her voice. Still.
I grudgingly had to admit, "That is true." There was a slight swish as she came up beside me and still I didn't look at her.
"The boy has sacrificed much for thee. Ye would denounce his deeds?" Her usual crustiness was back and rebuking my bad humor. Instead of making me repentant it instead stoked the embers of my anger.
The heat exploded in me loosening my tongue. "Yes damn it! I would have him be a coward if it would keep him alive!" The heavens remained unmoved by my glare as the Lady remained still as rock by my side. I wanted her to jump at my searing words. I wanted her to flinch away from the flames of my temper. How could the world not feel the tempest in my heart?
"Because ye love him." Kaede's words struck like a fist to the gut and I was left speechless as she went on. "Kikyou, my sister, held my position before. I feared for her life oft' times. To be on the side of the light is to court the side of the dark and it has far more poisonous claws. I could not see why she should risk her life so. Let those in peril protect themselves. But once the duty fell to me I could no more ignore it than she. Ye know the pull of the good fight, ye know that it can not be denied." Finished with her veritable speech she paused as if waiting for me to say something. When I didn't she turned and walked away.
I put my face in my hands ignoring the beads pressing into my right cheek.
~Kilala
Sango was in the same position she's held for the last three hours and I was worried. The first time our family was destroyed I felt the same need, same bloodlust, to seek out those who had stolen them from us and to rip their throats from their bodies. Yet this time our member had fallen and there was no effort to revenge him. A sort of cloud had settled over the family and none of the members seemed to be able to bring themselves to declare the hunt. I know the evil one that took the rest of our family is the cause of this new wound. Deep in my soul the wish eviscerate the motherless toad has grown ten fold, but I myself could not bear to leave my family so defenseless in their present state.
I sighed and shifted my head to a more comfortable position on my paws. This stillness, this sense of hopelessness, it is like a poison eating at our family. Sango's heart is still sick from the loss of her sibling to the evil one. Her heart is slowly losing its ability to reach out to others. I can see in her the fear, the fear of loss.
One of the new members, Kagome, has the scent of one who has not seen the death of one she cares about. This must be her first, and I am not sure she will be able to pull herself out of the void. I remember the deep ache the almost unbearable weight of guilt for surviving that I experienced with my first. Humans die far too quickly, and witnessing their deaths is never easy for me, but I have learned that the only way to make the hurt less is to love more. Kagome does not have this experience and I fear that the others may fail to understand the danger, I have seen many a human follow another into the void incapable of dealing with their loss.
The Monk, Miroku, smells heartsick. I snort at that. He might not know it yet but he is. He does not seem as lost as the girl, he already knows the feel of death, but I fear that the fight will go out of him. He is a deadly fighter and I know the two ways such men deal with the deaths of their mates. One is the listless apathy that generally leads to their deaths as they fade away and another is the berserker rage of madness. It is a more explosive way to met death and usually takes others with them.
The boy, Inuyasha, he does not seem affected but I know the truth. He is holding on by his claws trying to hold the family together, trying to keep the girl from following. His fierce devotion is barely making a dent in the cloud and I can sense his desperation. He knows, as I do, the need to cling to those you have left but I worry that he will find no one left to hold.
I focus on the oldest remaining member of my pack, my family, my clan and know that the bindings that hold us together are stretching to the breaking point. Even if I did not have centuries worth of memories to tell me this, her strained and stony face would have told me. Dressed as if for the hunt, in black and pink with hair pulled back, she had sat with knees folded and hands resting upon them in a silent pose of sorrow for the last three hours. Times like these I wish I had the ability to talk human.
Tbc